Why Gun Abolishment is needed for the Consistent Life Ethic and for Leftist Values

There's a bit of hypocrisy with the CLE and Leftist spaces not talking that much about gun abolition despite support of guns fundamentally clashing with all of the other values. Though there is a rising number of people who are because they are fed up with the amount of mass shootings in the US. But here are some of the reasons gun abolition fits in well with leftistism and the consistent life ethic.

Guns are the ultimate way to value property over people. When people say they would shoot someone who was trying to take their gun, they are showing that an object means more to them than someone else's life. They are putting the right to life below the right to own property. They are an example of someone who shouldn't own a gun because they think it's ok to kill someone so easily.

Thousands of accidental shootings happen in the US each year from guns. This is something that will never be able to go away based on giving people mental health because they were unintentional. It also means that gun control won't work in this area because someone could pass all the checks and still accidentally shoot someone. This happens in many different ways too...adults accidentally shooting kids, kids accidentally shooting adults, guns malfunctioning, cats and dogs accidentally stepping on guns and setting them off etc. Those lives shouldn't be cast aside as necessary casualties because people don't want to give up their guns. 

The Gun Industrial Complex makes a lot of money off of the sales of guns, accessories, hunting licenses etc. There are many different companies who have their hands in the pot when it comes to guns. The NRA is the head of the gun lobby and makes sure that guns remain legal because it's a multi billion dollar industry, bringing in tens of billions of dollars per year.

There are a million different ways to defend yourself and the idea that we have no other choice but to use guns to defend ourselves is manipulative and comes from the gun industry saying that because they just want to make money, just like how the abortion industry manipulates people into thinking they need abortion in order to have freedom. It's a capitalistic effort. People defend themselves in many different ways and with many different things on a constant basis and yet the gun lobby makes sure that the concept of self-defense is tied to guns so that people feel like they *need* guns...like they have no other choice but to buy guns or else they'll die. As we have seen with other subjects, industries make people feel like they have no other choice but to do something because it's the easiest way to make sure they do it and help pump billions into the industry.

This has resulted in there being over a hundred million more guns than people in the US. "More guns" can never be the answer when there is an excess of guns already. We have too many guns to even use. Because of the capitalist effort of the Gun Industrial Complex convincing more and more people to support guns so that the industry turns a profit, even when it goes against their other values, guns now outnumber the number of people that can use them. We need to go after the manufacturers who are preying on the vulnerable to get them to support guns so that they can turn a profit with their blood money.

Due to the capitalistic efforts of the gun lobby and industry, gun culture here in the USA is extreme and that's why so many people support guns here. They wouldn't had they been raised somewhere else, which we have seen by the rest of the world being extremely confused and scared by our gun culture. People are afraid to travel here because of the huge amount of gun support. Gun culture is a systemically oppressive power structure. It's an extreme form of toxic masculinity. It's treated as normal and kids are raised to believe that buying a gun is no big deal. Parents teach their kids how to shoot at young ages so that they think that's just what people do.

Guns cause a lot of trauma for groups that are most affected by them, such as women and POC and LGBTQIA+ folks. Women and female bodied people are many times more likely to die in domestic violence situations with a gun in the house. POC are more likely to die by the police shooting them than white people are. The answer to the police or the government having guns is not to make it easier for them to have guns, it's to call for disarmament and abolishment.

But instead of calling to disarm the police, people call to support more guns. When we are told that we have to use that which oppresses us, we are being oppressed further. It's like telling us that to fight rape, we have to become rapists ourselves. That harms us as well. When you, your friends or family members, or your minority group has been affected by gun violence, it is traumatizing to see people support guns. I love orgs like Gays Against Guns because they help show that minority groups, which are disproportionately victims of gun violence, need to stand up against guns, not support them. The systems that oppress us want us to support guns so that we will continue to be oppressed. It allows easier access for our oppressors to get their hands on guns.

The second amendment needs to be repealed because it is an unjust law. Just because a law exist doesn't mean it should continue to exist. We know this because Roe v Wade is an unjust law that was repealed for being unjust. There's no good reason to own a gun. Hunting animals is wrong, and there are a million different ways to defend yourself outside of guns. There are even various other objects to use for target practice. They're not needed even if the Gun Industrial Complex tries to manipulate us into believing they are.

The idea that banning guns won't stop people from getting guns is no different from the idea that banning abortions won't stop people from getting abortions. We already know that that's a bad argument so we shouldn't be using it with other subjects. Though banning isn't the end all be all. We need a cultural shift. We need each individual being able to have the strength to pull themselves out of the clutches of the lies that the gun lobby has spread and taking a stand against it.

When people bring up cars, they don't seem to realize that if the sole purpose of cars was to hurt and kill then yes everyone would support them being banned. And if you can use any household object to kill someone then you can use those same household objects to defend yourself and you don't need a gun. And if people kill people, and the problem is people, then why would you want the problem to have guns? The arguments those who support guns use are hypocritical in terms of how they view other subjects and just bad arguments overall.

It's hypocritical to support guns while being against the death penalty or assisted suicide. If you think a murderer shouldn't be killed for being a murderer (and I agree) then it makes no sense to say that someone robbing you should be shot to death. If you think people shouldn't be killed in war (and I agree) then it makes no sense to say someone breaking into your home while they think you are away should be shot to death. Guns are also the ultimate way to provide suicide assistance because it's one of the more lethal ways to do it and a hell of a lot more people would kill themselves if they had access to guns. It makes no sense to say you are against euthanasia/assisted suicide, or say phrases like "suicide prevention, not suicide assistance" and then turn around and support putting guns into the hands of people who will later use them to kill themselves.

There's nothing about supporting guns that fits in with a culture of life, equity, and social justice. Guns are violence just like abortion, war, the death penalty, animal agriculture, and police brutality. The arguments used to support guns are very similar, if not exactly the same, to the arguments to support of any other form of violence. Guns inherently go against the right to life. For further reading, please check out The Socialist Case for Gun Control by Nivedita Majumdar and What Gun Control Advocates Can Learn From Abolitionists: Slave ownership was once as entrenched in American life as gun ownership. by Manisha Sinha and Rebecca Onion.

Why it's inconsistent for the Consistent Life Ethic to not support rights to assisted suicide/chosen euthanasia

There's an elephant in the room we need to talk about. Because the Consistent Life Ethic started off in Catholicism (though you can believe in it no matter your religious or political identity), it is said to include not allowing people to have a right to assisted suicide/euthanasia. But here's the thing: The right to live and the right to die are the same right. They cannot be separated. They are two sides of the same coin. It's all about letting others control their own lives. For example, no one is against killing because they think the victim should be forced to live, it's because they understand that that is not anyone else's body or life to take. The reason we have empathy for others who are hurt or killed is because someone else decided to force death on them. So I wanted to quickly go through some reasons as to why I see not allowing people to have these basic rights is unethical and inconsistent with life issues.

Consent is key. Whenever people who are against assisted suicide argue against it, they focus on the people who were forced into it, but what they don't seem to realize is that everyone who supports it agrees with them. Everyone on each side of this issue is in agreement that it is wrong to force, pressure, and coerce people into it, or not give them compassion, support, and other options. Just as everyone is against pedophilia except pedophiles, the only people who support forcing people into it are those who are doing the forcing. People should be given all the love, compassion, support, and knowledge of options possible. But at the end of the day, if nothing is working for them, they should still have their rights.

It's torture. Assisted suicide is talked about in regards to when terminally ill patients have pain that is so extreme that hospice/palliative care and pain meds won't help them. There is a naivety with thinking, "Well you can just give them pain medication and they'll feel better, so they shouldn't have a right to assisted suicide" when the main point is that it is not possible for relieving pain, whether that be with medication or anything else, to work in 100% of cases. There are many times in which the only way pain meds will stop someone's pain is if they are in high enough doses to be lethal. And the ironic thing is that there are some people who argue against these rights but their argument will end with "it is acceptable to give them pain medication that will treat the pain even if it kills them"...but...that's assisted suicide. So sometimes they do agree with us after all, without realizing it. But anyone who says that someone shouldn't be allowed to utilize assisted suicide, therefore being forced to have to suffer extreme pain and agony as they slowly die instead of getting to choose to die quickly and painlessly, is supporting torture.

I don't think anyone except for the most evil unethical people could ever watch someone go through that torture and still say that they should not have a right to quick and painless dying. So my view has always been that those who are against these rights haven't thought about it enough to put themselves in the shoes of others. And when they argue that people shouldn't be forced to help if they don't want to, we again agree. But there are more than enough people who understand that it is literal torture to not allow people to have this right that we wouldn't need those who don't want to contribute, to contribute. 

It's a form of slavery. By that I mean that it treats someone else's body and life as property to be forced to live as others see fit. It takes away someone's rights to their own self, and objectifies them. To get to make your own choices for your own life and how you will live it is the most basic of principles, but those who are against the right to consent to assisted suicide/euthanasia take a stand against this owning of your own life. It is so fundamentally against every other aspect of these people's beliefs that it's truly bizarre. This is something we would expect corrupt rogue military personnel who have caught prisoners of war and want to make them suffer to believe in, not those who believe in a consistent life ethic. To be stuck in a hospital bed in pain because everyone around you thinks that it is necessary for you to not get to choose how you will die can make someone feel hopeless and like a kidnap victim. People have cried out for mercy and their cries aren't listened to because society wants to act like somehow the pain meds they are already being given will help so they should just shut up and give up the will of their lives to others. But these are human beings, not objects.

It's inherently ableist. Those of us who have disabilities are often treated as second class citizens by those who are against these rights, by them advocating for our agency to be taken away. If your answer to the pain of those with disabilities is to say that we do not get to have the right to assisted suicide/euthanasia, all you're doing is dehumanizing us. It goes hand in hand with the ableist idea that anyone who has suicidal ideation must be "not of sound mind." Which is a really easy way to "other" people and not see us as full humans with our own thoughts and outlooks on life, as if everyone has to have the exact same view of their own life as them or else they are "defective" and shouldn't be listened to. 

The idea that we shouldn't allow *those who consent* to something to have the right to consent to it because *others* are forced/coerced/pressured into it makes no sense. It would mean that we have to illegalize sex because people are often forced into it through rape. Opponents of these equal rights often use the slippery slope fallacy as a way to justify taking away rights to those who *do* consent to it. But we can never take away rights from others just because some are being forced into something. The solution to that is to get to the root problem and fight the forcing of it, not fight the consenting to it. If all of the people who were against others consenting to it spent all the energy they use to make sure no one gets to have that right, fighting to make sure no one is pressured into it instead, it wouldn't be an issue.

The big dilemma with how we view pro-choicers

So I've mentioned this before, but a lot of pro-choicers honestly don't know scientific facts, or aren't aware of other choices, or have people lying to them about the whole thing. Perhaps this actually makes them seem better, as it may not be their fault, and maybe they aren't the big bad people that want to kill babies but rather are just confused people who are uninformed as their side and society have pulled the wool over their eyes. Then again, maybe it's worse as they should know better and stand up against those trying to convince them of it. On the other hand, in a certain way that's better than then saying "Yeah we know it's a human being, but we don't care, people should be allowed to kill them anyway", and yet recently I came to the conclusion that one of the worst things about the pro-choice side is the fact that they spew so many scientifically illiterate things, and at the very least, if we got rid of all the "it isn't alive" "it's just an appendage of the mother" "it isn't human" garbage and all pro-choicers were just "yeah we recognize that it's a living human being but we think that mothers should have the right to do away with them" then life would be so much better, because at least they wouldn't be spewing unscientific crap that makes us think they are really just trying to justify it all with their bigotry, or perhaps they were wronged, or this will only help to further brainwash that side into actually believing all of that, and maybe that would be a step in the right direction as that big brainwashing mechanism which is the reason for a lot of people being pro-choice would be taken away from them and it could lead to less people being pro-choice.

So I guess what I'm saying is that this seems like a bit of a predicament. I'm sure it's also an area for lots of different sides and viewpoints in the pro-life side. You also have the pro-choicers who know it's killing and admit it and say there's nothing wrong with it and maybe wouldn't mind doing it, or people that act like it's great, like closer to your pro-abortion people, who on the one hand seem horrible, but on the other hand at least are more consistent and honest than their counterparts who are "personally pro-life" and think that abortion is a horrible thing, but think that we can't tell women to not do it, even though we don't do that with anything else, such as murder in general or rape.

The abortion doctors who know it is a human being and baby and life and they are killing it are great because it will help people understand these things and we can say "see, even they know it", but then are horrible because they are ACTUALLY fine with killing. The person who blatantly describes abortion like it is infanticide is horrible for being ok with that, but necessary for showing people that it IS infanticide. The person who honestly believes they are supporting women's rights by being pro-choice and doesn't realize the humanity of the unborn, and normally wouldn't hurt a fly, is better for being that type of person, but bad because they are supporting the stereotypes and a culture that hurts our young, but then that is split up into who was the one who wronged them and actually made them think that, as well as why on earth didn't they have the sense to realize that that is obvious bull and they should think for themselves?

It's hard. My empathy censors are going in all sorts of directions and I just don't know how to feel. Sometimes I want to hug those who actually think it's "just a clump of cells" and dehumanize, as I know they were brainwashed into believing that, and other times I hate that they are like that, and probably have convinced other people that that is actually true, as they even said it and are telling people that, and that's how it keeps spreading.