Why did they invent guns?

Why did they invent guns? He asked at six.

My mind spirals through the history of guns climbing its DNA stretching back to its beginnings.
My heart retracts into the fear I have of losing my son to gun violence like my best friend's mother did twenty years ago. My best friend, my brother shot on Good Friday and gone by Easter.

Why did they invent guns? He repeats.
Thats a powerful question, I say.
But, why did they invent guns? Insisting on an answer now.

I stumble over my thoughts and hold back my words. And suddenly my words feel like bullets as I have struggled in adulthood to put myself and my words out there even with my own children.

Why did they invent guns mama? Again he begs.
How will I explain this? Pega leve (go easy whispers the intrusive maternal voice in my head).

...
Mama, why did they invent guns?  He waits patiently as if time has frozen.
...

My silence masks the rant within:
Because external power is a drug bringing the psychedelic illusion of wholeness
giving a rush that extends the ego to the skies and hides any pain we carry within. Supremacy.

Because gun powder smokes and the ego loves to fire up that which makes us vulnerable and hurt
like a wild forest fire set ablaze by entitlement. Wrath.

Because the man's ego trip felt powerless and small in Nature's presence and co-existing is exhausting more so than the weight of ammunition and weapons carried across fields by those premeditating victory by bloodshed. Pride.

Because the colonizers' need for control was blinding when faced with the brilliance of other men and women who had better navigation tools or were skilled in their sustainable interdependence with the land. Envy.

Because the King's men felt entitled to the Indigenous body, their wisdom, their co-creations with nature, their riches, their presence, and their flesh. Greed.

Because learning, teaching, being, creating, stillness, and connection require more than the pull of a trigger. Vulnerability.

Guns are patriotic.

I wonder where we would be if mental health was tied to patriotism like guns, whiteness, and racism. If when as beings we ached and struggled, we would be offered therapeutic help and presence with the same ease that we are handed hot dogs and fireworks on the fourth of July.

Because guns were valuable and what they conquered was instantly priceless.
And yet, guns are cheaper than tutoring, therapy, rehab, and summer camp.

Cheaper than enough therapists to support our students and their families at community centers and schools. Cheaper than raising the minimum wage to a livable wage and cheaper than paid time off for families to care for each other, their neighbors, their babies, or themselves. Thousands cheaper than health insurance, smaller class sizes, and schools that don't look or feel like prison.

Guns are cheaper than rent, a car, and a semester's tuition. Guns are so cheap. The cheapest way to take, steal, kidnap, traumatize, destroy, oppress, torture, shatter, manipulate, dominate, and terrorize children and communities, dreams and hearts by the dozen.

Guns protect us they say...

Guns protect us only in so much as numbing our pain and fear-based living does as well.
True protection is connecting the mind, body, and spirit within community because that is how we  decolonize ourselves and start healing. True safety comes from turning inward to nurture the essence of our soul. Embracing the uncertainty and mystery of life, giving heart space for feeling our grief, listening to learn and do better, listening, listening, listening,... that protects us.

Owning our privilege, using privilege to reverse the oppressive systems by which we live, by which too many die. What protects us is conversations, conflict resolution, and committed listening not pulling a trigger.

Pulling the trigger never hugs us, holds us, nurtures us, mothers us, heals our traumas, walks with us through the shadows of the valley of death. Guns kill us and our communities over and over while holding redemption and resurrection in a choke hold.

... Mama?

Why did they invent guns?
That is a powerful question meu amor.
Guns were invented for the same reason they are still around.

To kill.