Weeks ago, I listened to a segment on NPR in which insurance companies seemed to be taking a rational approach to gun violence. If you have guns in the home you will likely pay higher rates commensurate to the actual risk your choices make the insurer face. Studies indicate that having a gun in your home increases the likelihood of gun violence, either by murder or suicide. So insurance companies (where such questions are not prohibited by state law) are taking a scientific view of the problem and analyze risk based on decisions policy holders make concerning gun ownership, whereas politicians have an emotional response and take fixed positions that lock and load our nation in endless debate.
And so more and more "stuff happens" which is the way some politicians (Bush and Trump) describe the endless rounds of personal tragedy that terrorize our kids.
This year at Clear Spring School, students in the upper elementary class were asked what they feared. One student new to CSS named gun violence in schools as being her biggest fear. Do you think that is an uncommon thing? And does anyone really think that a child's fear of gun violence would be alleviated by the presence of more and more guns? I realize that not all my readers agree with me on the subject of guns but if insurance companies recognize a clear danger from having guns in our homes, why can't we deal with the problem of gun violence and never have the fear of violence face the children in our schools? Let's do something about the problem, even if it requires changing minds to do so.
In the meantime, a beautiful tool can be as engaging as a gun, but leads not to risk, but toward the creation of beauty.
Make, fix, create, and assist others to learn likewise.
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