Episode 65: What's My Expiration Date?

TRANSCRIPT OF “WHAT’S MY EXPIRATION DATE?”

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MALE VO [00:03]
This is Bad Attitudes.

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LAURA [00:20]
Hello friends and strangers! Welcome to another episode of Bad Attitudes: An Uninspiring Podcast about Disability. I’m your host, Laura.

Today’s episode will be centered around guns and gun violence. If that’s something you don’t want to listen to right now, I absolutely understand and hopefully I’ll catch you next week.

Today’s episode is sponsored by Dot Nary! Thank you, Dot.

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As always, I want to remind you that disability is not a monolith. My experience as a disabled person is going to be different from the experiences of other disabled people. I am one voice for the disabled community but I am not the only voice.

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LAURA [01:54]
This past week, I had an interaction with someone on Instagram after she asserted that people who are old enough to have an AARP card should immediately have any guns removed from their possession. I am personally in favor of removing as many guns as possible from as many people as possible, but I have a definite problem setting parameters like this.

The reason she brought up age was because of the recent shootings of Ralph Yarl in Missouri and Kaylin Gillis in New York, who were shot by 84 and 65-year-old men respectively. I sent her a message saying that I didn’t think age was the real problem in either of these cases. The real problem is that these men are entitled, unhinged assholes who shouldn’t own guns in the first place. She responded by saying that there is a cognitive decline as we age, and things someone would “never” do can change in just a few years.

There’s no argument against her being right, generally speaking. Our cognitive abilities DO decline as we age and our behavior can change drastically as a result. I witnessed it firsthand with my grandfather who had Alzheimer's. However, in the absence of such a diagnosis, how do we determine the point at which we peak cognitively? Let’s be honest, some people don’t have much cognitive ability to start with and shouldn’t own a gun regardless of their age. (They’re also coincidentally the people who seem to own the MOST guns, so make of that what you will.) And yet, there are some people of extremely advanced age who are far sharper mentally than I could ever hope to be. So putting a blanket limit on when society automatically removes guns from their owners doesn’t make much sense.

Realistically, it’s an incredibly dangerous slippery slope. I can easily envision starting out by saying, “When you reach the age of 50, you can no longer own a firearm,” and that spiraling into the government or society putting a limit on our lifespans so that no one outlives their usefulness. And what determines usefulness? Our ability to work? Our cognitive abilities? Who gets to make these determinations? 

Let’s say we do get to the point where our lifespans are determined by our usefulness. Guess who they’ll come for almost immediately. Disabled people. We won’t be the first. They’ll roll out the age limit first to get everyone acclimatized to the idea, but it won’t take long.

I know this sounds like a dystopian novel. Just blame all the dystopian novels I read. It’s still not so farfetched. There are already people who exist IN THIS WORLD who think disabled people should be eradicated from society. There are plenty of people who basically agree that disabled people offer no value to society and are just a burden to everyone else. And there are plenty of people who feel the same about persons at or above a certain age.

I understand this might seem to be an extreme extrapolation. But if you really think about it, it is completely possible to connect these dots. If we require gun owners to give up their guns when they reach a certain age, we can require drivers to stop driving at a certain age, and we can mandate how old is too old to have children. The right is already trying extra hard to control the bodies of citizens through abortion bans, drag bans, and gender-affirming care bans. Is it really so hard to believe that this could eventually snowball into eliminating certain members of society? I mean, they’re kind of trying to do that already.

It shouldn’t be hard to wrap your head around. It’s already happened many times in our collective history. Or did you not learn about the Holocaust? Or colonization? The Holocaust is the most obvious example to point to, but it is certainly not the only example of a mass extermination event.

Let me reiterate, I am in favor of taking guns away from people who cannot handle them responsibly, as the aforementioned shooters clearly cannot, and I’m in favor of taking assault weapons away from EVERYONE. I even think giving cognitive tests as part of gun purchases wouldn’t be a bad idea. Along with any battery of tests that can rule out anyone unstable or dangerous. Our gun control laws are far too lenient.

When I saw this person’s idea that people of a certain age should have their guns taken away, it immediately brought to mind Nikki Haley’s idea that politicians of a certain age should be given cognitive tests. For those who don’t know, Nikki Haley is the former Republican governor of South Carolina, worked for Donald Trump when he was in office, and is now running for president in 2024. Haley isn’t entirely wrong, she just doesn’t take things far enough. ALL politicians should be given cognitive tests to determine if they are fit for office. As well as tests that can rule out instability and danger, because I don’t know if I would say that Ron DeSantis is a man of lesser cognitive abilities, but he is DEFINITELY dangerous. Then again, he’s also the man who just decided to allow Floridians to purchase guns without permits or training, so his cognitive abilities are questionable. As are the cognitive abilities of anyone who still wants to go to Florida.

So, yeah, I find it highly problematic that someone suggested we automatically take away someone’s right to own guns simply based on their age. Because when we start doing shit like that, it’s inevitably going to trickle (or gush) down upon the disabled community, and we’re going to lose a lot more than just the privilege of bearing arms.

You know I’m serious about this because defending people’s second amendment rights is not really my idea of a good time. But we have to acknowledge and accept that if we start taking away guns based solely on someone’s age, a whole lot more limitations will be coming down the chute rather quickly.

Thanks for listening and I’ll talk to you in the next one.

[08:40]
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