Another month and another mass murder in an American High School.
This was the 18th US school shooting this year. Mental health is used as an
explanation by the Right. But for most it is simply the number and easy access to guns.
Gun Country.

Like humans we are born to repeat and repeat. Particularly around trauma. The repeat is a signal to our slow primitive brains that there is something to be looked at. But we ignore it. It’s too painful. It’s too big. It threatens to shake the core. So it has to be pushed away. Reasoned with platitudes, excused with false reasoning.
It is again shut away. The top screwed on even tighter so that it doesn’t escape into view again.

Guns are at the heart of America. The trauma was the way the States were won: the gun was the medium of the creation of the Federation. No gun and the country might be lost. Protect yourself and your land from potential invaders who might grab it back.

And so it is to this day. If you don’t have a gun – you are vulnerable. Weak. Ready to be picked off by someone who is armed. The US is a vast country with many single homesteads in large empty spaces. Protected by the gun. Alone against strangers coming in from the emptiness.

But this time the repeat might be different. People have had enough. Something might change. Like the repeating drug addict who finally managed to kick the habit. The repeating repeat was more painful than the trauma. The message broke through. He had had enough and wanted to stop.
Gun Country.

Copyright Adrian Scott North London Counsellor Blog 2018
All rights reserved
Disclaimer: This weblog is the view of the writer and for general information only
This article is designed to provoke argument and critique