Worth reading…

This is something my sister forwarded to me, part of an email newsletter from Penzey’s Spices –

“And guns are dumb. Yes, hunting, and ranching, and law enforcement, but even then there are substantial risks. But owning a gun as though it is some sort of safety accessory is stupid. It’s like spending hundreds of dollars to add a self-destruct button to your life. At any moment, all it takes is one pull of the trigger, and just like that all the goodness in your life can be gone, never to return. Guns are dumb.

We should all feel safe, and as humans, long before we had cooking we had weapons. But if you ever need a weapon, just look around you, they are everywhere. These days the kitchen of every American home rivals the arsenal of a good-sized medieval village. And who even needs the pointy things when you have cast iron? But guns are different. They try to sell you on the idea that guns give you control, yet with one pull of the trigger whatever happens next will forever be in someone else’s hands.

With yesterday’s verdict in Kenosha there were many headlines. Some spoke of freedom, and self-defense, and innocence, but once you pull the trigger there is no going back to what you were before. There is no return to innocence. Bring a gun into your home and it’s far less likely to take the life of a stranger in self-defense than it is to kill someone you love through accident, suicide, or your anger. A lot of the time someone wanting to own a gun is a pretty good sign that they’re the kind of person who shouldn’t have one. Guns are dumb.

I know that for many of you yesterday’s verdict and the joy it sent through the pro-gun crowd brought a sense of goodness slipping away. I get that. For me, in times like these I find cooking brings perspective. Once I came to see cooking as what it is, an act of kindness, the news lost much of its power to bring me down.

Even though the news presents itself as having its finger on the pulse of where we are at, it in reality shows little more than the couple dozen most out of the ordinary events that took place in the past day. Much of the news is horribly unkind. But to see cooking as kindness is to understand that for each and every event horrible enough to make the national news there are hundreds of thousands of acts of kindness happening in kitchens all across the country every day. Even on the worst of days there is so much more goodness. Please try to see it if you can.

If you are a hunter or if your job requires a gun, sure. But if you have a gun out of a sense of safety get rid of it asap. It is nothing more than a self-destruct button for the goodness in your life and in the lives of those you love. Guns are dumb.

Getting every 5th item over $2 free isn’t dumb. Nor is regularly $5.69 Smoked Spanish Paprika, the $5.29 Lemon Pepper and Mural of Flavor for just $2 each, or $2.79 Revolution for just 50¢. Visit one of our stores or penzeys.com today. Be smart.

Thanks for caring even on the days it hurts to care,

Bill
bill@penzeys.com

P.S. If this email was forwarded to you by a friend, would you please consider signing up for our email list? If you saw yesterday’s Kenosha verdict as one more sign that there is a separate but not equal justice  system for white people in America and that reinforced your belief in the need to say Black Lives Matter until Black lives get to have justice, too, we would be much-much-much better for having you on our mailing list. Please come be a part of shaping a world filled with every kind of very kind people. Thank you.”