I’ve always stuck up for the right to possess guns, mostly
because I knew a lot of people who owned them and didn’t see a problem with
that. But though I supported the rights of others to do so, my personal decision
was not to own or even ever fire a gun. I guess that’s what you call tolerance.
I guess that’s what you call being a decent human being, accepting for the sake
of others what you yourself do not really like.
That’s what it all boils down to for me, but I think a lot
of gun owners have lost sight of that fact: that people who do not have guns
choose not to because they don’t like the things. And if we don’t like ourselves
or our close family owning guns, just think of how we feel about Ted Nugent
owning an arsenal. Speaking on behalf of non-gun owners, we support the rights
of others to have guns not because we think it’s good for us, but because we’re
basically nice people.
I’m guessing a lot of us non-gun owners view the gun culture
in the same way we do cosplayers or dungeons and dragons enthusiasts: it’s kind
of silly, but as long as they’re not hurting anyone, I’m okay with it.
Unlike people who dress up as superheroes, however, gun
owners ask us to tolerate a hobby that’s potentially dangerous. If someone
dressing up as Batman got behind the wheel of an automobile and tried to drive
while having his vision reduced because of the mask, it begins to be a problem.
It is at this point I expect responsible cosplayers to speak up and denounce
irresponsible behavior. When they don’t, when they double down on their right
to wear masks that impede their vision while driving, I start to think they
care more for their right to dress oddly than my personal safety. Am I out of
line in believing so?
Everybody, especially gun owners, especially gun nuts, knows
someone with a gun who makes them a little nervous. We all know there are
wife-beaters and dog kickers out there with a sizable collection of guns. This
may seem an acceptable notion to gun rights advocates, but please try to see
how it might appear less acceptable to those for whom guns have no appeal.
Imagine how you would feel hearing a woman’s screams coming from the house next
door: if you knew her husband was armed to the teeth, how willing would you be
to go to her rescue?
Guns make gun owners more dangerous and intimidating. The
mere fact that someone owns a gun and I do not makes them more secure against
me than I am from them. They have upped the game, begun an arms race I and
others like me felt no need to start. It’s like, “hello, I’m your new neighbor
and I have a gun. If you want to feel protected from me, you should get a gun,
too.” No, I don’t want a gun. You have changed a gun-free environment (my
preference) to an environment with guns (your preference). Don’t tell me you
are not asking anything from me.
I have literally never been in a situation where I felt more
comfortable with a gun present. I can think of plenty of times where a gun
could have made things plenty worse. This is not an argument, merely an
observation. I did not live an entirely innocent childhood and have witnessed
and even participated in my share of violence. Never once did I think, “Oh,
good, someone with a gun arrived, now the situation will be resolved.” Guns, in
my opinion, only escalate violence. Even when they do not, they elevate the
intimidation factor. I never want to believe that people treat me with respect
only out of fear for the weapon I carry. That is a false sense of security, the
idea that my implied capacity for violence will make you accept me for who I
am. It suggests that the moment they have the jump on me they should take that
opportunity in order to be the one with greater power. I don’t understand that
sort of thinking but I realize how easy it is for odd rationality to become
engrained into our thought processes.
Only one time in my life have I been happy to have the
police arrive on a scene, and then I would have been just as happy if they had
left their guns at the station: they weren’t required. That means that in all
my travels, from Cabrini Green to the backwoods of Wisconsin and Canada, I have
never ever been glad to see a gun or someone with a gun. In simply every
situation in my life, the presence of a gun has either made me feel uncomfortable
or on some level threatened. I’m not asking you to agree with me, but to accept
this is how I feel. It is comparable in my mind with walking around with a
cocked fist and saying “just in case”.
Oh, I know, it is your Second Amendment Right. The key word
there is “right”. The founding fathers gave you a right, they didn’t say it was
right. So many gun owners walk around with the idea that they and they alone
are heroes protecting The Constitution of The United States because they own
guns. But what they mainly go around protecting is their right to own guns. I’ve
never seen someone with a gun step up to protect the right of someone to cast
their vote at the ballot box. Maybe if gun owners cared more for the rights of
others rather than for their right to carry guns into church they might garner
a little more public support. I can see it now, a cop trying to arrest someone
for smoking a joint and a stranger pulling out a gun and saying, “Hey, leave
that poor citizen alone, he’s not hurting anyone.” If a gun owner did that, he
would earn major cred from me.
The idea behind the Second Amendment was to enable the
people to protect themselves against an overreaching government. I hate to tell
you, gun owners, but you have fallen down on your job. If it was your role as
proponents of the Second Amendment to insure the other rights guaranteed in The
Constitution, you have failed miserably. And if you think your ownership of
guns is going to protect us from a government that has drones, tanks, and the
ability to monitor virtually everything you do and say, you have been fighting
the wrong battle. Gun ownership has not protected our liberties, it is merely
one of the last to be given up, the permitted illusion of freedom they allowed
you until guns were no longer a threat.
Last issue I would like to bring up as a non-gun owner: the
idea that if the government were to fall apart that gun owners would be there
to insure law and order. I do not like this image of the future gun owners have
created. It is one where people with guns rule with violence and the threat of violence.
Towards this perceived vision of the future you have bent your energies,
leaving the idea of a peaceful and prosperous tomorrow behind. I do not like
your vision of the future, and feel a gun culture and a gun-influenced ideology
is leading us towards a bleaker tomorrow.
I don’t want to take away your guns. At the same time, if I
woke up tomorrow to find every gun on the planet had vanished, I would think it
was a blessing and not a curse. I think that’s pretty cool of me to go so far
out of my way to tolerate your love for an item I find repellent. But you can’t
always demand and never give back. You don’t need to show how tough you are,
you’ve got freaking guns. We get the point. You should start demonstrating you’re
acting in good faith with us non-gun owners who ask only to not live with the
threat of being shot. Reign in the crazies, make some workable suggestions
rather than going on the attack. Set a good example in the hope that you can
make us see guns in the same way you see them, and accept the fact we probably
never will. And get Ted Nugent some help.
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