There is a country

There is a country that needs something done about it. It is a country where violence is endemic. Where the population are armed, sometimes very heavily, because they need to protect themselves against other members of the population, who are also armed.

Of course, in this situation, there are often tragedies, where misunderstandings lead to deaths. That is just the price they feel they have to pay for the safety and security that their weapons give them. There are also cases where young people get hold of weapons, and kill themselves or others. Or disgruntled teenagers shoot up their schools. This is, sadly, the price they have to pay for being safe.

Unfortunately, the country does have a long history of racism and racial oppression. This is not to say that everyone who lives there is racist, just that the the dominant race does have all of the privileges, and the other races are considered to be of the criminal classes by the authorities. This is particularly an issue because of the prevalence of guns, meaning that the security forces are well armed, and will often shoot first. Of course, if they shoot a member of the criminal classes, they are simply protecting themselves, because there is a good chance they are armed.

The final irony is that this country, where nobody is safe, so everyone has to be armed (or everyone has to be armed, so nobody is safe), where racism is endemic, where people can be shot and killed simply for the colour of their skin, calls itself "The Land of the Free". There's the irony - if you are in the privileged group (Wealth, White and Christian) then you are free. But that freedom comes at the expense of the non-privileged.

Freedom for the blindfolded. Freedom at one end of a gun.