What If We Treated All Crimes Like We Treat Gun Violence?

Recently, I’ve been barraged by e-mails and facebook posts from buffoons claiming that the United States is trying to outlaw all guns and weapons, everywhere, without any notice or discussion. This is a stupid lie being spread by the paranoid and uninformed.  In response to the feat that gun violence laws will take away American weaponry, many people are trying to find alternative solutions to gun violence OTHER than taking guns away.  One of the most common suggestions to counter gun violence is that we should start arming more people for their own safety:  Teachers should be given weapons to protect their classes, for example. The thought process is that if a potential victim is armed with a weapon, then criminals won’t act out.  (That’s why the inner city is so safe, right?  If you threaten someone with gun violence, their response is…peaceful acceptance, of course!) 

This issue ignores the reality that most mass murderers are mentally unstable and don’t seem to care about if they live or die, but the argument for arming our teachers continues to pop up in all sorts of media. That’s why I’d like to offer the opposition a chance to really get to the bottom of their belief system. So I ask: 

What if we treated all crimes like we treat gun violence?

Performance enhancing substances.

The news regularly likes to report about steroids and doping in sports. What if we treated steroids and doping in sports the same way we’re being told to treat gun violence? Sports would certainly be fairer, if everyone was on an equal playing field! The only way to make sports fair again is to put everyone on the same level, and fight steroids and performance enhancing drug abuse by giving all athletes in sports steroids and performance enhancing drugs.

Sorry Lance, but you're the new face of doping for sports!

 If a 300 pound behemoth of a man is charging down the field at you, it seems only fair that you also be a 300 pound behemoth too. Admittedly, the shrunken testicles and copious rage problems might crop up as problems from time to time, but isn’t it worth it if our sports heroes can feel safe again?  Instead of giving the person who abused the system a punishment after the fact, we need to preemptively level the playing field and give their victims the same power as the people abusing the system.  We can’t even just give steroids to a team when we KNOW the enemy team is using steroids, because punishment after the fact is clearly not deterrent enough. We clearly need to give steroids and performance enhancing drugs to all of our athletes, to be safe.  And wouldn’t baseball be more fun if we had another Mark McGuire hitting home runs every pitch? If we treated other crimes like we treat gun violence the world would be a better place.

Drug Abuse.

In many rural communities across the US, and particularly in the Midwest and south, dangerous drug abuse is on the rise and is a problem for law enforcement and civilians alike. Breaking Bad even glorifies the problem, making the drug peddlers into a sort of anti-hero, out to make money in any way they can. Right now, we do silly things like regulate how much non-drowsy allergy medicine you can buy, or how much cough syrup.  What if, instead of handing punishments down after problem arose, we instead leveled the playing field:  Give everyone drugs, so that no one is at a disadvantage.

We make great TV about drug abuse, we should be proud!

If a coked up druggie breaks into my house at night, I’d feel safer if I too had a few pills in me.  After all, you pretty much can’t feel fear when abusing meth; you’re too busy losing teeth and trying to stop the shakes.  If we treated drug abuse the way we think we should treat gun violence, maybe we wouldn’t have civilians scared to leave their house because of their druggy neighbors or dangerous communities.  No one would be scared, because they’d be just as scary and out of their minds high themselves! Trying to talk to a heavy drug user is impossible when you’re sober yourself. If BOTH people in the conversation were trashed out of their minds the argument still wouldn’t be rational, but it would certainly be more energetic. Instead of interventions, we’d have Heroin parties, so everyone can have equal footing and have first-hand experience.  If we treated other crimes like we treat gun violence the world would be a better place.

Identity theft

Identity theft is a serious problem in the United States. Someone loses a wallet or pays for an online purchase at a sketchy website and ends up with a long list of strange charges on their credit card bill and a painfully expensive lesson about protecting their identity. But what identity thief would dare to steal someone else’s life if their own were stolen in response! Just like guns, we should make the threat of retaliation part of preventing crime! To protect yourself from gun violence, get a gun: To protect yourself from identity theft, steal an identity. Truly, this concept is genius. I

Because sometimes the ID card for "Donald Trump" looks like a 5'2" Asian woman.

I expect that identity theft would stop within days if it was legal for victims of identity theft steal the identities of the person who stole theirs.  After all, no one wants their identity stolen, right?  Violent and dangerous criminals tend to be very rational, right? They might not fear the law, but violent criminals would probably fear retaliation! Going to jail and losing their working life isn’t a serious threat for criminals, but having their identity stolen might stop them! If reactionary identity stealing were legalized, identity thieves would stop stealing identities so that their OWN identity would be safe, it’s so clear now!  If we treated other crimes like we treat gun violence the world would be a better place.

Animal Attacks

Too often, a bear attack or other wild animal attack pops into my e-mails as a warning to all of those of us living in places like Alaska. Entirely seriously, as part of my departmental safety training as a biologist I took an online course in how to respond safely to moose and bear attacks! But despite this training, I can’t help but wonder: Could the same principles we apply to gun violence be applied to animal attacks? If you want to avoid being attacked by an animal, you should have a wild and angry animal of your own.

Don't worry, this picture's fake.  But animal attacks really happen more than you might think.

As it stands now, if a bear or similar creature attacks a person we usually put the animal down. If a dog goes wild and bites someone, we put the dog down.  The same goes for wild animals. But punishment after the fact might not discourage animals from attacking. The only logical solution is that people need to own equally dangerous animals for their own protection. Imagine how rare a dog bite would be if you had an angry, violent attack dog with you at all times.  For those of us living in wilder places, wouldn’t it be safer to travel with a trained attack bear or a fighting lynx? Wild animals aren’t going to attack you when you’ve got a frothing-at-the-mouth killer bear with you!  And ignore the risk of the animals you’re training as attack-beasts turning on their owner.  That would be like worrying about violence from the people we should be giving guns to for their safety.  It’s not like giving more people guns could ever possibly go wrong!  If we treated other crimes like we treat gun violence the world would be a better place.

 *   *   *

Though meant to be sarcastic and amusing, the truth is that the solutions above and the idea of arming ourselves in order to DISCOURAGE more violence isn’t logical. In some countries, owning a gun is legal and gun violence is low, but that simply isn’t the case in the United States.  We have a problem with violence, and handling it by giving out more weapons seems a rather foolish step.  Until we can be a less violent people, giving us weapons is going to do little more than cause further trouble. Using weapons to retaliate against violence is like trying to stop terrorism by threatening retaliation against civilians from the terrorist’s country. It won’t stop the mentally deranged individuals who commit these crimes, and will only serve to cause more possible violence by hurting more innocent people. After all, are murderers, particularly mass murders who use high-powered weapons, the sort of people who commit their crimes because they fear consequences?  Personally, I doubt it.

Hopefully this post made you think, and the absurdity of the examples made you chuckle. Thanks for reading BB+B, and I hope to hear from my readers about what they like, disagree with, agree with, or want to see changed.  Thanks as always, and feel free to check out some other fun posts, like “Regional Stereotypes:  Uncomfortably Accurate" and "Too Hot vs Too Cold:  Let's Compare".

Thanks for reading,
Brian, the Author Guy

I’m Sorry: An apology from an ex-bully

When I was younger I was beaten up rather regularly.  I was picked on because I was a nerd, I was the only guy who really seemed to enjoy being in the chorus, and I was a twin whose counterpart epitomized the stereotypical “cool guy” persona.

My twin brother was tough, and had a sharp tongue. He played football, ran cross country, was on the swimming team and the water-polo team, and played in the band all while holding down several long term serious girlfriends.  He was the guy every teenager emulated, whether consciously or not.

This is, obviously, not him. But he's cool too.

I was silly and over the top.  I was a mediocre student in as many advanced classes as I could take to show off my intellect. I was a choir-boy through and through, and until around age 13 I was the pushover nice-guy that gets picked on for being nice. But as I hit my teenage years, something changed:  I got bigger, very quickly, and grew from 5’ to 6’ in around 2 years. And then I started to pick on many of my friends, and became a passive aggressive type of bully.

I was like this before I got tall and bearded:  Nerdy and awkward.

I wasn’t a bully in the traditional sense:  I didn’t go out and find the smallest people I could, and I didn’t pick on the kids everyone was already ready to pick on.  I only picked on my long-term best friends. I found people in choir whose voices were better than mine in the tenor section (because a high voice usually meant they were embarrassed at how they sounded), and I mocked them for being too effeminate. I tried to become tougher by sarcastically putting everyone around me down. By the end of freshman year of high school I had ostracized some of my closest friends, gotten into trouble for stealing and fighting, and was a generally unpleasant little bastard. 

The long and complicated story that ends with me realizing I was a bully is too lengthy to put here, so I’ll give the shorthand version to save time.
1) I got a job, and found out that being tough didn’t mean crap if I wasn’t hard working.
2) My sister started dating more seriously, and I hated the guys who acted exactly like me.
3) My voice dropped further, and my new choir friends were all confident and strong.
4) Finally, I started seriously dating. One girl I dated had been abused by the men in her life.  Once I saw the actions of adult male bullies, I realized it was time to wise up.

Once all these things happened (between ages 13-15) I stopped being such a bully. I became the hard-working nice guy, I pulled up my grades, I joined clubs and started practicing martial arts, I helped tutor a few kids in my science classes, and I generally became a much more pleasant guy. But the thing I never truly did was apologize to the people I hurt in my youth. . 

I'm Sorry!

I'm sincerely sorry for being a jerk when I was a kid.

Bullies don’t often apologize.  We never have to because most of the adults in our lives know that a bully apologizing is about as sincere as O.J. Simpson’s book “If I Did It”. Even when we’re forced to apologize, we get away with a sarcastic or passive-aggressive apologies like “I’m sorry you annoyed me so much that I ended up hitting you” or “I’m SO SORRY I stole your lunch money to buy myself a second delicious cheeseburger while you sat crying in the nurse’s office.”

Today, though, I’d like to apologize on behalf of my younger teenage self. 

First, let me say that in the intervening years I’ve tried to be a better man.  I worked as a professional boy scout, am studying conservation and ecology to be of use to the rest of the world, am active in politics to try to help those who I think need protection and assistance, and I spent years of high school organizing and working with a homeless shelter to provide for victims of Hurricane Katrina as a part of my Boy Scout Eagle Scout project. In college I joined the ‘nice guy’ house and promoted anti-hazing and responsible partying on a campus where Greek organization hazing and binge drinking were the norm.  I’ve tried very hard to act in a moral manner in order to correct for my many teenage wrongs. 

Boy Scout Brian is Better Human Being Than Bully Brian

I still feel that I need to say I’m sorry.

I am so sorry that I was a weak and hateful little kid.  I picked on friends because I was too afraid to pick on strangers that I wasn’t sure would put up with my bullshit.  I am so incredibly ashamed of having made anyone feel bad about themselves and I didn’t deserve the friends who tolerated my crap and put up with me for YEARS of mistreatment and abuse.  I’m sorry that I tried to lord my intellect over others or my strength when I finally grew into being physically strong.  I’m sorry for teasing and mistreating you, and I’m sorry that anyone ever felt like I made their lives worse.  I’m sorry, personally, to the half dozen people I tormented even through our friendly interactions. We played games together and spent time together, and yes, I know that I was USUALLY mostly nice…but for every time that I broke the fun up with violence or teasing or mocking or perpetuating rumors, I’m sorry. You all deserved better, and even today deserve better than someone who took so long to apologize.  You were my best friends and I made you feel like crap.  So, I repeat and with every ounce of sincerity say:  I’m sorry.

No one should be the sort of bully I was.  No one should bully at all, but in particular those horrible bullies who pick on their own friends to save their own egos are especially pathetic and foul. I hope you can forgive my childhood weaknesses, and I hope that if any other bullies read this, they realize that their adult selves will not want them to keep perpetuating the bullying that feeds their weak egos.

This is normally a comedy blog, and today I’m not being funny at all.  I felt that today, it was time to make up for my past mistakes and admit I was a terrible snot-nosed young teenager. I wasn’t a bully before I hit the teenage years and I stopped being a bully before I learned to drive, so if that time frame reminds you of yourself or someone you know, realize that you or they are probably only a bully because you or they are a scared little snot.  Do the right thing, make amends to those you have hurt, and grow a pair of proverbial balls as you admit your mistakes.  You’ll never be a real adult until you can face the mistakes you made before becoming one.

The overused and childish phrase I was taught as a child was that “Bullies are big on the outside and small on the inside.”  It’s immature and simplistic, but it’s also accurate and insightful. It's time us ex-bullies or current bullies try to be bigger people, on the inside for once.

I’ll get back to being funny later this week in my next post.  For now, thank you for reading and pass this along to anyone who might need to take a gander at the admission of an ex-bully, whether they’re a bully themselves or if they have been victims of bullying.

Thanks for your time,

Brian, the Author Guy.

Feel free to check out my other relevant posts, such as “JerksFinish Last” and “For Alto to Bass:  How a Choir Boy Becomes a Mountain Man"

America's New Year's Resolutions

Here at BB+B, I decided to write the new year's resolutions for the United States of America this year. I wrote them as if I were the collective persona of America, and offer the explanations for each point as best as I understand it. Now, speaking as America, in the first person, I'd like to share my (America's) resolutions for the year 2013

1) Get In Shape

Twinkies, You Will Be Missed...But Not By Me

In 2012, I tried hard to get fit. I walked more, I smoked less, and I drank...well, about the same. But if you ignore alcohol and smoking, 2012 was STILL a pretty unhealthy year for me, no matter what I tried to do to fix it.
In 2012, I kicked the twinkie habit to the curb for good (assuming that whole mess wasn't a clever marketing ploy, which I admit I'm not sure about). I visited my 58 national parks, though admittedly not too often. I tried to walk to work more to avoid the rising gas prices, though I quickly realized walking is both slow and sweaty, two things I as America have always hated. I even renewed my long term fascination with Football, but according to that smug bastard Europe, “WATCHING SPORTS ISN'T THE SAME AS PLAYING”...like he'd know, he calls soccer football, like a nerd. So in 2012, I didn't manage to make much of a change. I remained fat. And I believe that I, as America, really need to get in shape in 2013. I therefore resolve to lose weight, or at least try for a few weeks in January, before giving up and finding out how many twinkies I can buy on EBay.

2) Be Less Violent

I Far Preferred the Old Version of the Flag...

I need to be less violent. I mean, I knew that compared to the rest of the world I was violent. Hell, the bastard who sits above me, Canada, manages to preach non-violence like he's that loony Indian guy Ghandi, but in 2012 even I would say that I got a bit too violent. Not even just with guns...I was violent in pretty much every way. For Christ's sake, even my religious groups are acting pretty violent...I mean, have you SEEN the Westboro Baptist Church? How the hell is that 'Turn the other cheek'?
But I digress...in 2012 I had more people in jail per capita than anyone in the first world...I had more rape than pretty much any other first world country, and generally I was a violent sonofabitch. So for 2013, I resolve to be less violent. Maybe I'll channel my anger into something constructive, like kicking South Korea's ass...assuming, you know, the UN says ok. Because that guy got PISSED when I went to the middle east and started beating up the religious kids. But mostly, I have to resolve to stop picking fights so much. It's really never working out for me.

3) Embrace Change

I'm Pretty Sure the 2012 Election Was More About These Than The Presidency

I used to be the guy other countries looked to when they wanted to be modern. I was ahead of the curve, a trendsetter. If you ignore slavery, and God knows I did for a century or two, I was the cream of the crop in terms of progressive social change. I let women vote, I let natives have their land back (OK, I let them have SOME of it back, but I wasn't going to just LEAVE and live with my parents in Europe again, right?), and I got my science work together ahead of the game. I built cars and planes, the television, the radio, I went to space, and I generally kicked the rest of the world's ass at science. And in 2012, I pretty much just watched Jersey Shore and Honey Boo-Boo. So in 2013, I need to get my crap together.

I'm going to get that whole Stem Cell thing figured out. I'm going to cure cancer, or at least try. I'm going to find out what exactly “AIDS” is, and why Africa keeps asking for condoms and mosquito netting, because I cannot figure out how those two are related. I'm going to spend a LITTLE bit less time working out my military, because I spent at least half of my time and money on that bad boy last year, and even I realize I should scale that back. I'm going change, and stop fearing new things like weed, gays marrying, abortion, scientific research, and secularism. So, I resolve in 2013 to embrace change, live up to Obama's hundreds of thousands of unfulfilled promises, and just maybe stop watching Honey Boo-Boo, because that crap is a waste of my time.

And for my final resolution...
4) Chill The Hell Out

"Oh Beautiful For Spacious Skies" is Better Than "America, FUCK YEAH!"

I know that my election year cycle is the national equivalent of PMS, but holy crap this year got brutal. It's one thing to have a big fight between political groups, but I really lost self control this year. I mean, was Romney the BEST I could find for the right? I'm starting to think I'm going to be more of a Lefty this year, because my right arm is starting to just look crazy. And Sandy Hook happened, and all I could talk about was keeping my guns or arming teachers or whatever. Looking back on that, I'm a bit ashamed. I really need to get control of myself and chill out. Maybe take a walk on the beach with Cuba, and stop giving him the silent treatment. Or maybe I can learn to relax better, and instead of flexing my left and right and arguing internally, maybe I can start trying to have both sides take care of my body better, and spend more time having fun than going ape-shit about religion and taxes.

In 2013, I resolve to get control of my temper, control my aggressive urges, and just maybe learn to be a bit more respectful of other people (and by people, I mean countries). Maybe if I'm in better shape, less violent, and learn to embrace change with my other resolutions, I'll find a way to relax better. In 2013, I resolve to be a kinder, smarter, stronger United States. And if that doesn't work out, at the least I can show progress, so that the rest of the world stops thinking of me as such a bully.

To wrap this whole set of resolutions up, I am going to just generally try to change for the better. 2012 was the year of the Apocalypse, right? So maybe for 2013 I can try to rebuild from the end of the world that didn't happen, and make myself a better country, a better person, and more attractive so other countries want to date me. In 2013, I'll reclaim my stud status, and have the rest of the world trying to sleep with me again. And by sleep with me, I mean trade and ally with me. Because countries don't have sex.

Happy New Year!
BB+B Started in 2012, and it was a great year, but I like to believe that 2013 will be even better. Stay tuned, keep reading and commenting, and let me know what YOU want to change in 2013!

Thanks for Reading!
Brian, The Author Guy

(Check out other posts about the country and change, like “Uncomfortably AccurateRegional Stereotypes” and “Jerks Finish Last”)