http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/on_your_mark_20120809/
Years ago, I was preparing for my first trip to Europe, Paris to be exact. Life and fate decreed that I would find the wherewithal to venture to the city of my childhood dreams about three months after the United States invaded Iraq. At the time, I had a coworker who was very concerned that a terrorist would potentially blow up the plane and a host of other tragic scenarios that ran through his mind. When he asked me why I wasn’t afraid or concerned enough to cancel my trip, my reply was something very lighthearted. However, the truth ran far deeper than my lighthearted response. The truth was and still is that I am far more frightened of the harm a fellow gun-wielding American can do to me than any terrorist scenario that someone can conceive. That is as it should be. Although there are always references to terrorist plots in the United States that were foiled, those are fewer and farther between than the average United States citizen, armed with legal machines of small-scale, yet still, mass destruction. At 19, I had a man in New Orleans threaten to shoot me, my friend and his friends (friendship wasn’t that precious to him obviously). I took that as a credible threat and said last prayers. Fortunately, I’ve lived to tell about it. However, whenever I make decisions they always include considerations for safety. Will I be out very late in a bad area? Bad is relative as I’ve spent my life living in cities that cling to the top 10 for crime in the United States. I remember being in high school when a fight broke out, from my position in the front of the crowd I saw one of the fighters reach in his clothing and pull out a gun. Needless to say, I NEVER attempted to watch a fight since then. Even Corporate America must contend with the existential peril of gun violence. I had a coworker that I knew owned a lot of guns. In different conversations with him, I became worried about what could happen if ever his job were threatened. Would he come to work with his collection of guns on his person and begin to kill his coworkers? I even wondered if there were a mechanism in place that would allow an employee to express concern for the potential violence they suspected a coworker could be capable of in a bad situation. At the time (and probably even now), stories were rife about disgruntled employees coming to work and killing coworkers – friends and enemies alike. And now, the narrative of gun violence has been expanded to include a former doctoral student in neuroscience. Just as bad is relative, so too is safe. Mike Luckovich’s cartoon is hilarious. However, the truth of the matter is that it is a sad state we live in when, as a country, we are so conditioned to the clear and present danger of our own gun violence while still obsessing over the potential threat from international terrorists.