Picking up a gun is never neutral. The mere act of picking it up (guns being death machines BY DESIGN) will cause one of two reactions: a feeling of power or a feeling of horror at all that power. The power in your hands is very real. It’s Life or Death. Literally. Who would want such power over another human being? Someone afraid, of course. People unafraid of the others around them would never even think to weapon up. Fear rarely produces moments of heroism. The fearful NEVER run toward danger because they’re worried first and foremost about their own ass and its survival. Hey – that’s completely understandable! But it’s still cowardice.
Kyle Rittenhouse and his pals see him as heroic. The “heroic” should sue them. Heroic is the last thing Kyle Rittenhouse is. He’s still a schoolyard bully in training and all schoolyard bullies are cowards. Bullies rely on the bullied never fighting back. The moment they do? The bully has a problem he’s incapable of handling being rigid, self-centered and plumb ignorant. And, being a coward.
Guns really and truly are death machines. Their whole design is “aimed at” sending a piece of metal hurtling through the air – at speed – toward a living, breathing target. The point is to stop that target from living and breathing. No one except a skilled marksman can honestly “shoot to wound”. Everyone is just shooting. Death is one of the possible outcomes. In fact, a dead body with a bullet hole in it is evidence that the gun was used successfully per its design specs.
Guns were not designed to sit in gun lockers. Yes, that’s what “responsible gun owners” do when they’re not using their guns – and they do deserve “responsibility brownie points”. But that’s like trying to assess highway fatalities using data about cars that never left their garages. Cars, by the way, were designed to transport people from point A to point B. Anyone killing someone else with their car has done something with the car that it wasn’t designed to do. As arguments go, that one’s always among the most specious.
The only honest measurement of a gun owner’s responsibility is what happens when their guns are out and about. That’s when accidents can happen. Can any gun owner guarantee that accidents could never happen with their guns? Of course they can’t! Any gun owner who says they can is full of shit (and dangerous as a result). Accidents can and do happen. Things worse than accidents, toio.
Nancy Lanza (mother of Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza) considered herself a “responsible gun owner” right up to the moment Adam shot her to death (while she was sleeping) with one of her own guns. Just like that, Nancy Lanza went from “responsible gun owner” to “irresponsible gun owner” and “dead person”. Does anyone think Adam Lanza was heroic? No. He was an angry, mentally unwell coward with access to death machines.
Every gun lover who insists they need their gun in order to protect themselves from a rampaging, power-mad government is completely full of shit. It ain’t the government they’re arming themselves against, it’s their fellow citizens mostly because those fellow citizens aren’t white. America’s gun laws are inherently racist because their intent was inherently racist. While we’re on the topic, the Second Amendment – just going by its language – was meant to CONTROL guns, not make them the subject of a free-for-all. The word “OWN” does not appear in the amendment. That wasn’t an omission. It was a deliberate choice by its authors because they didn’t intend for citizens to OWN guns. That’s why they used the words “keep” and “bear” rather than “own”.
The militia was organized military. Were they unregulated? No. Were they semi or sorta-kinda regulated? No again. The militias (per the Second Amendment’s authors) were WELL regulated. More control, not less. They would be the arbiters of who could “keep” and “bear” the arms in question. If the people bearing the arms don’t own them then who does? Why, the militia of course – the well-regulated militia.
Why on earth would anyone lie about what a Constitutional amendment says? Why would they do everything in their power to do the OPPOSITE of what the amendment says and even lie about what the words in the amendment mean? Cos heroic? No. Cos cowards.
If we could crawl inside the head of a gun lover heading to Walmart to do a little shopping – and fearing for their life – we’d find one emotion running riot: fear.
In the event of actual danger, the last people who should ever be armed – because it makes them so much more dangerous – are cowards.