Thursday, March 29, 2018

Thoughts Of A Nice Non-Gun Owner



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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