On Friday October 6th, the acclaimed writer David Brooks wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times entitled Guns and the Soul of America . In this piece Mr. Brooks makes the case that gun ownership in the United States of America symbolizes something much greater than the simple owning of a firearm. Mr. Brooks writes about the schism that has developed between pro-gun advocates and anti-gun factions; a schism that has bled over into numerous other aspects of our increasingly divided country. In his closing, Mr. Brooks argues that to progress as a nation we must find a way to move forward together and to do so we must include guns in the conversation.

David Brooks wrote this piece for The New York Times newspaper opinion section. This means that Mr. Brooks' intended audience is rather small and homogeneous. Most readers of The Times are white, college educated, and self identify as liberal or very liberal. The Times' readers usually hail from wealthy zip codes on the nation's coasts and a few wealthy places in between. This affluent, educated, liberal populous is Mr. Brooks' audience and he knows it. Mr. Brooks does his best to persuade these readers, most of whom are fiercely anti-gun, that to move forward for the good of our nation they will need to make some concessions to our nation's gun owners.

The credibility of the author is beyond reproach. Even though Mr. Brooks writes for the left leaning New York Times, he is considered a conservative author and a political and cultural commentator. To add to his credibility, Mr. Brooks is well known and well respected across the American political landscape.

The basic argument made is that to move forward from the country's current fractured condition, both sides must make concessions. Mr. Brooks claims that to do so, "we need another grand synthesis that can move us beyond the current divide, a synthesis that is neither redneck nor hipster but draws from both worlds to create a new social vision". As evidence for this he points to one of the greatest American presidents ever, Theodore Roosevelt. President Roosevelt was able to transcend the fight between agrarian populists and genteel Victorian aristocrats by inventing a new American nationalism. In doing so, President Roosevelt was able to draw from both cultures and replace them with a more unified and inclusive culture. Mr. Brooks uses the logic that bringing a divided population together has been done successfully in our country's past and thus can be done successfully again. As is almost always the case with David Brooks' writings, this piece is well thought out, well researched and well written.

I for one completely agree with Mr. Brooks and his opinion that to move forward as a country we must come together. To do so each side must make some concessions. The partisan name calling and vilifying of our fellow Americans must be replaced with honest attempts at tolerance and understanding. That is obviously much easier said than done but we owe it to ourselves and our fellow countrymen and women to try. 



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/opinion/guns-soul-of-america.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion-columnists