Things I'd Point Out To Gun Owners If I Wasn't Afraid Of Getting Shot

1.       In the 50's parents and the broader community raised the children. Now, children are raised by television, and television does not promote responsible gun use.

2.       I’ll take my chances with a mass shooter over armed teachers any day.

3.       I’m not against guns, I’m against bad reasoning and powerful lobbying groups. Okay, I’m afraid of guns too, but I respect that you feel the need to have one. I respect that it is part of the culture you grew up in. But the NRA is a group funded by gun manufacturers in order to increase sales. They’re like the sugar industry pushing their product on people who don’t really need it. They’re like an insurance agent pushing fear. They’re like the pharmaceutical lobby that’s looking to have everyone on drugs. The pharmaceutical industry. There’s one I’d like to see connected to mass shootings. How many of those people were on prescription meds?

4.       Don’t tell me more guns will lead to less gun violence. I’ve seen too many war movies to know that’s not true. Don’t tell me guns are part of a well-balanced breakfast or will make my teeth bright. Just tell me a gun makes you feel more secure, admit that a gun to you is like a woogie to a toddler. Admit that you want a gun because you feel afraid. And what are you afraid of? Unarmed people? No, you’re afraid of people with guns. Well so are the rest of us. Oh, I know, it’s the bad gun owners that are the problem, not the good guys. They’re there to protect us. Maybe if the good guys looked a little more like Pat Boone I’d feel less threatened. But it’s those Pat Boone looking types that are the ones to flip out in the end, aren’t they?

5.       If criminals can still murder without guns, why can’t good guys protect us without them?

6.       We both agree that it is not guns but nuts with guns that are the problem. Explain to me why you think the NRA isn't nuts.

7.       The answer to piranha attacks is more piranhas in the waters.

8.       The answer to drugs in schools is to give drugs to teachers.

9.       The problem is that sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between the good guy with a gun and the crazy guy with a gun. For example, which one is Ted Nugent supposed to be? If he’s one of the good guys with a gun, what do the crazy ones look like? Honestly, you know how it is when you see a Middle Easterner, right? You don’t know which are part of the overwhelmingly peaceful majority and which are the crazies. Well that’s how gun owners look to non-gun owners. If you walk into a grocery store with a gun, that looks threatening to us, just like someone who dresses differently or has a different accent appears threatening to you, the difference being that nobody was ever killed by a Keffiyeh.

10.   I respect your right to gun ownership, I really do. Now please start acting like you respect my right to not own a gun and not be shot. I know you feel that the answer to not being shot is to own a gun but not everyone feels the way you do. Some people just don’t feel the need. Respect that. Because when it comes to me looking out for myself I feel the same way you do, I care about myself and my ability to choose what is best for me than I do what is best for you and what you think is right. And that means when it comes to my right not to get shot I really don’t care about what the Constitution says, much less your interpretation of it. You see, the Declaration Of Independence precedes the Constitution and it says I have a right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. My right to life is more important than your right to gun. It predates it by thousands of years. In The Bible, it was not only immoral to shoot someone, it was impossible. That is how God made us to be: gunless. Jesus told us that those who live by the sword would die by the sword. I think that applies to guns as well. Guns are contrary to God’s will, and it is time to beat them into plowshares.

11.   Even so, I do not begrudge you your guns even though I don’t use the things. After all, I have a few sins and vices of my own and I wouldn’t appreciate you trying to take away my right to drink a beer or two because you don’t imbibe. Of course, there are laws restricting my drinking and I understand that. I don’t take a beer into the grocery store with me, nor would I ever take one into a church or a library. Because I’m a responsible beer drinker just as you are a responsible gun owner.

12.   I watched Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine. That right there will have half of you totally dismissing anything I have to say, but hear me out for a moment. I didn’t think it was a great film, felt that in the end it really didn’t have an answer to the problems of gun violence. But perhaps that was a strength to it, not having easy answers. In one part of the movie he asks why Canada and the U.S. seem comparable in gun laws and ownership and yet the U.S has so much more gun violence. Here is one possible explanation: the NRA and the influence of money on politics. Show me an issue where money is spent and I will show you irrational, extremist views being voiced.

13.   I know tons of normal people with guns. But Ted Nugent? That would be like NORML getting Ozzie Osbourne to support their cause.

14.   The Second Amendment clearly states that every property-owning white male has the right to own a flintlock pistol or a muzzle loading musket.

15.   You don’t need a gun to not get shot, but You do need a gun to shoot someone else.

16.   Why didn’t our founding fathers insist on my right not to get shot? Maybe it was just part of the Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness thing. Maybe it was just assumed that my right not to get shot was important.

17.   It’s not that I’m more afraid of gun owners than my government, it’s just that I have more faith in my government to protect me from being shot than I trust gun owners to protect my other freedoms. Whatever government that would be formed by militias would be a nightmare, far worse than what we have now. The government worth having will not come through force but through non-violent and intelligent means.

18.   When you take up arms to oppose a tyrannical government, the government will send in robots with bombs to blow your ass up. They will send drones to take you out. Your guns will not protect you from the government, they will only serve to divide the public between gun owners and non-gun owners.

19.   You frighten us non-gun owners. I know you are absolutely right when you say that people kill people, not guns. But very often people who kill people do so with guns. I know people can kill people with knives too, and people openly carrying machetes scare me as well.

20.   I have just one question: how come all the shooting range targets are black?

21.   I do not fear being murdered by a gun owner. The odds are pretty slim. What I fear is being pummeled to death by the faulty arguments of the NRA.

22.   The pro-gun position will always have an advantage because guns are a product, and there is money to be made by promoting them. The anti-gun side will have no big money behind them, hence no big P.R. firms manipulating public opinion on their behalf. Ban the AR-15? Perish the thought when profits are at stake. I’m not saying they should be banned, I’m just saying the pro-gun lobby will never be as even-handed as I am. I don’t have a profit motive, they do. And they have the finances to spread their message far further than I can.