I understand where the average gun control advocate is coming from. I disagree with them, but I understand their position perfectly well. While a number of them probably see guns as a barrier to their own preferred flavor of tyranny, the average gun control advocate really does believe that gun control will make us safer. They really to buy into the argument that restricting the purchasing of firearms by law-abiding people sort of "trickles down" to the criminals somehow.

I understand that.

The issue, however, is that most people who favor gun control haven't got a clue why we oppose it. They routinely argue that if we wanted to do something about violent crime, we'd support gun control, despite the fact that literally no one on this side of the debate believes gun control reduces violent crime, just to name one example.

Then I came across an editorial from outside of the US--many Americans like to look to English-language publications outside of the country because they think there's more enlightenment to be found there than here--that blames "comfort of amnesia," of a sort, for not passing gun control.

But amid the din of which of the old men returns to the White House as the 47th president of the United States of America or the motive of the 20-year-old Republican voter-turned-gunman or even the misgivings about Trump’s victimhood, an age-old question of gun culture has made a comeback. American gun culture has a central role in the assassination attempt on Trump, and Trump himself is one of the fiercest defenders of such a culture. And if anyone thinks Trump will now rethink his love for guns, one of his advisers, Chris LaCivita, has clarified that the ex-president will continue to protect gun rights. For the Republicans, the constitutional guarantee offered by the Second Amendment for individuals to carry guns is sacrosanct; Trump will potentially continue to exploit the Americans’ emotional attachment to the gun as a self-defense instrument.

Such is the gun obsession in the United States, even after seeing the assassination of four presidents—Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy—and assassination attempts on Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W Bush, among others, the country is helpless to do much about it. The comfort of amnesia is too dear to America when it comes to dealing with the tough question of gun violence. And with a morally repugnant record of supplying arms to Israel in its attempts to wipe out the Palestinians, Trump’s opponent and sitting president Joe Biden is lost for words. The United States should really unite to wipe out gun culture.

Of course, the inclusion of "wipe out the Palestinians," you know this isn't an editorial board worthy of being taken seriously.

But the idea of "comfort of amnesia" isn't unique to these folks by any stretch. Many people really do think that we quickly forget the tragedies or near tragedies of the past.

That's not remotely true, though.

For example, we remember Lexington and Concord, when the British Army marched in to confiscate privately held guns so as to keep the 13 Colonies under the crown's oppressive boot.

We remember the specter of slavery, a time when large groups of people were treated as cattle and were denied the basic human right of self-defense from those who claimed to be their masters.

We remember the bloody war fought to reverse that national sin, soon followed by another prolonged era of oppression of those same people. That was a time when they were once again denied their right to keep and bear arms because those vile individuals who would torment and murder them didn't like their prey to have teeth of their own.

In the 20th Century, we remember the horrors of the Holocaust and how the Jewish citizens had been denied guns with which they could protect themselves. We remember the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, though, when some of those got their hands on guns and decided to fight back, at least being permitted to die on their feet rather than be exterminated.

We remember the Killing Fields of Cambodia.

We remember the Holodomor.

We remember the Armenian Genocide.

We remember a long list of incidents where people were stripped of their ability to defend themselves and suffered as a result.

But that's not all we remember. Oh no, we remember so much more.

We remember how Ukraine began arming its citizens as the Russians massed upon the border, only to mount a greater defense than anyone thought possible. 

We remember countless smaller instances when private citizens used privately owned guns to defend themselves from violent attacks.

The issue isn't any "comfort of amnesia." Amnesia would allow us to forget the horrors of the past, but it would also deny us the memory of our triumphs. It would mean that we'd be willing to ignore history and accept a restriction on our rights without regard for the terrible history of humanity.

But there wouldn't be comfort in that because we'd forget how the right to keep and bear arms keeps this nation safe and sound. We'd forget the joy of going to the range with friends or family. We'd forget the relief when we hear a sound in the middle of the night and know we have the means to protect those we love.

I get that folks outside the US don't understand that. They enjoy the comfort of amnesia because they have forgotten the troubling past. I pity them for it, one and all.