The chaos and violence in Kenosha, Wis., are unfolding as I write. I feel as though I’m watching some natural disaster develop, suddenly overpowering any hope for social change “before it’s too late.”
Is it already too late — that is to say, too late to disarm our concept of social order and, for God’s sake, safety? The American problem of guns is not only that there are so many of them, vastly more than there are people; and that they are deemed, by so many Americans, necessary for survival and empowerment, commanding a reverence in the collective imagination right there alongside the flag and the cross; but also, that they are inextricably linked, in so many ways, with American racism.
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