by Don Hall

There are over 400 million guns in America. More than half of the United States allow their citizens to carry concealed weapons without licenses or training. In a similar perspective that those of us who understand that the First Amendment means we will have to listen to ideas we find offensive and abhorrent, those who claim fealty to the Second Amendment feel that the use of guns for horrible purpose is the price we pay for the freedom to own them.

All the moralizing, rage and activism in the world is not going to magically or even over time get rid of guns in this country. The harder the Left pushes, the deeper entrenched the Right becomes.

It is a stalemate.

Recently, in my regular I Believe... column I wrote that "I believe ...that arguing without the hope of mutual resolution is the dirty politics of personal demagoguery. Best to simply shut up and let those unable to either persuade or be persuaded vent their rigid ideology and move on."

There was a time when the go-to method for persuasion when it came to issues in the world was to yell people into submission. Just argue better, hammer in on the moral imperatives, and win. In the halcyon days of the George W. Bush regime, any suggestion that he was anything less than a full out war criminal was met with a barrage of opinions, soaked in bile and disgust, that anyone could believe otherwise. Listening to the arguments of the other side was not on the agenda with the sole exception of hunting down the inconsistencies and flaws in order to smash their argument flat.

This was effective (at least in the mind of a hardwired debater with less desire to change things and more to simply vent outrage) but it was, in some ways, the worst version of myself. Angry, myopic, using any intellect available to start arguments that I thought I could win. There was a moralistic bent to most of my disagreements and if you didn't come around after some browbeating, you were a fucking moron or a dipshit.

Yet the stalemates kept coming.

Perhaps due to my stubborn resistance to engaging almost anyone seriously the year and a half I've been in Kansas, I've found myself living a uniquely solitary life. Aside from my family and the few people I work with, I have made no friends, no enemies, no relationships with anyone here. This has had a decent side effect in that I don't spend much time at all arguing with people about anything. It still comes out in recording podcasts with those whom I trust but, for the most part, I'm living a debate-free life for the first time in 57 years.

No debates, no stalemates.

I know the General Manager at the radio stations I work for is a big Trump guy but we never discuss it and, aside from his slight disdain for my previous work with NPR, there is no issue or hostility.

A lot of folks here in Heartland, USA love their guns. At the opening of a Scheels department store this year, I was knocked over by the entire top floor devoted to... guns. I mean, fuck. Pistols, AR-15's, ammunition by the shelves, holsters, bump-stocks, sniper rifles, hunting rifles. I wanted to scream out that this was insane in a country with 565 mass shootings in 2023 but the people purchasing weapons over the counter wouldn't listen anyway so what exactly would the point be?

This is not to say I'm weapon-free—I have a machete in my Prius and carry a pair of brass knuckles and a switchblade with me when I'm out at night. I like these items not because of their lethality but because they are weird weapons, weapons that confuse any assailant, and confusion is the opening for either escape or dialogue. I like them because I probably will never actually harm anyone with them.

In Vegas, I used to hang the machete next to the door.

Across the way was a meth'd out young couple who were always fighting. Bad fighting. One day, as I was taking out the trash, I spotted her sitting on the curb. Her face was bruised up and she was crying. I sat down a few feet from her and asked if she was okay. She didn't respond so I told her if she felt like she was in danger, she could knock on our door and I'd let her in instantly and call the cops. "Fuck off," she responded.

Sure enough, a month or so later, that knock came. He was coming for her, she was terrified, I let her in and shut the door. He started banging so I took the machete off the wall and opened the door. He stopped cold. I smiled. "Go back to your apartment right now while I call the police. NOW."

Later, after the LVPD came and took him away, one of the officers, a massive black cop squeezed into his uniform, came and knocked.

"The kid said you threatened him with... a sword?"

"Oh. No, it's a machete. You wanna see?"

"Sure."

I handed it over, handle first. He looked it over. "Why a machete?"

"Because I figure nothing is scarier than a white guy with a machete."

He laughed all the way back to his car.

I'd like to hold on to this resistance to jump into pointless argument when I return to Chicago. Stalemate debates are exhausting and I'm guessing, in their absence, I might actually do some good. If not, I always have a switchblade, too.