I haven’t written in a while. To my fan(s), I haven’t had a lot of motivation or inspiration for funny or interesting thoughts as of late. I’m not sure why. I am going to start writing shorter takes as that’s where my interest lies.
My hot take of the week is that so-called “men’s rights” groups should support gun control. The idea of a men’s advocacy group is kind of laughable as we have it pretty good. I’m a tall, white, heterosexual, middle class, and healthy man. I’m rarely afraid if I’m walking on the street, even at night, as due to my size it seems unlikely that anyone would want to mess with or rob me. The median voter is a 50 year old white man without a college degree and we are well represented in politics, corporate life, and the media.
Despite the many advantages of manhood, to my knowledge, there are two areas where we fall short compared to women: suicide rates and educational outcomes. I don’t have a good thought on education, but I have an interesting one on suicide.
Men are almost twice as likely to own a gun and handguns are the most popular gun to own. Guns are an extremely effective method for suicide and 54% of gun deaths in America were suicides.
I remember in college hearing a story of how even the sight of a gun will raise a person’s stress levels. Regardless of the person, the sight of an assault weapon especially, will raise their blood pressure, adrenaline, and cortisol responses. Therefore, having a gun around, especially if a man embraces the downsides to masculinity, makes it more likely that he will commit suicide. If handguns were harder to get ahold of, then less men may take their own lives.
It begs the question as to why men’s rights activist, Jordan Peterson, embraces the right wing nut job stance that gun control is totally worthless.
