Sorry, “responsible gun owners”, but you’re probably the worst possible judges of your “responsible-ness”. The proof? You call yourselves “responsible gun owners” like it was a magic protective shield against accidents or life’s unpredictability. You seem to honestly believe that you are truly “responsible” – the exception to the rule. Oy… every time a “responsible gun owner” insists that THEY are the real deal (it’s like Christians insisting that THEY are the real Christians, not those “others” who keep mis-representing the faith), I think of Nancy Lanza. Remember her? She was Adam Lanza’s mom. Remember him? The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter?
I bet Nancy Lanza thought of herself as a “responsible gun owner” right up to the instant her son Adam shot her with one of her own legally purchased, fully registered weapons. See? “responsible”! What could possibly go wrong when “responsible” people handle their guns responsibly?
Maybe part of our problem is that word: “guns”. It’s so innocuous. Hell, you can “gun an engine”. A quarterback can “run-n-gun”. We love the idea of our heroes arriving at just the right moment “guns blazing”. We see guns in an entirely positive light. Like guns couldn’t hurt us…
Maybe if we started calling guns what they actually are: “death machines”. The whole point of the exercise with a gun is to send a piece of metal screaming through the air at a live target, stopping it from doing whatever it’s doing. Death is a distinct possibility. While one can certainly shoot bullets at a paper target, that’s not what the gun was designed to do (Google “bb guns”). And they weren’t designed to sit in gun lockers either. Saying that one is responsible with one’s gun while it’s locked away safely where you can’t touch it is akin to saying you’re financially responsible while your money sits in a savings account. Well, ya kinda are but ya mostly aren’t. The only way to really judge anyone’s financial intelligence is to see what they do when they take their money out of their wallet (or bank account) and spend it. Gun responsibility is exactly the same.
In a sense, Nancy Lanza was “responsible” so long as she locked her death machine away. But the moment her son picked up the key to that lock – and accessed Nancy Lanza’s death machines while she slept? Unbeknownst to her, Nancy fell from the “responsible gun owner” club to the “totally irresponsible gun owner” club – and all without ever even knowing it. Then, as she bled out, formerly responsible gun owner Nancy Lanza’s son took her death machines to Sandy Hook and committed mass murder.
How irresponsible is that?
It is pure hubris for any gun owner to claim they are “responsible”. Can they predict the future? Can they truly claim that no accident will ever happen where their gun suddenly ends up in the wrong hands at the worst possible moment? Of course they can’t. That makes their claims of being “responsible” a little dishonest, don’tcha think? What they really mean is “they’ll be responsible right up until the moment they aren’t”. Then everybody’s on their own.
“Responsible gun owners” insist that the rest of us – the gun non-owners – accept their assessment of their responsible-ness sight unseen. We should trust them that THEY are the really responsible ones. If only that was true… the stone cold fact is every gun is an accident or a tragedy that just hasn’t happened yet. “Responsible gun ownership”? No.
Lucky gun ownership.
It ain’t the same thing.