Weak and Paranoid

This piece from The Trace is the best gift I've received this holiday season. I had no idea that there was this much progress on the issue of guns in this country. Take some time to look through each of the stories on the 10 Americans and how they are helping shift our nation's attitude about guns.

I think my favorite was Chris Lane's fantastic post entitled "3 Reasons I Went From Being A Gun Nut To Supporting Gun Control." Choice cuts...

Americans aren't completely free in many ways, and most gun owners don't seem to worry about the many laws and social customs that place limits on other aspects of their lives. I'm not free to walk down the city street completely naked (have no fear folks, that's not something I want to do), yet there are open carry advocates walking around stores with AR15s on their backs.

People willingly submit to rules and limits on their personal freedom in countless ways; it's the price of living in a civilized society without being a huge nuisance to other people. One day I realized that nudity is controlled more tightly than ownership of deadly weapons, and that seemed absurd to me. 

Indeed. It is absurd. But one has to understand that people that feel this way aren't really rational. They feel powerless without their guns. It's pretty fucking sad when you think about it. Worse...

They seem to believe that the reason a lot of people are in favor of gun control measures is because they don't value freedom and are "Sheeple," somehow rejecting the fact that more and more mass shootings and gun crimes seem to be happening and worry the rest of us. 

Some of the hardcore gun owners I met were convinced that America is heading towards an Orwellian future where no one is free and the government controls every aspect of our lives. To many of them, the only thing standing in our evil government's way is their personal stockpile of AR15s. They seem to ignore the fact that if the government went to such an authoritarian extreme, it would have the resources to effectively vaporize any suburban "patriots" who decided to raise an armed resistance against it. 

Thinking the government is out to get them is a very simple and fairly stupid way of looking at things, and not something the majority of responsible gun owners buy into, but once I found myself encountering a bunch of those characters, I decided I didn't want to be part of that culture anymore.

Bravo! Way to deprogram yourself and wake the fuck up. Why would anyone want live their life that way? Gun bloggers and the commenters that post on such sites seem to lack the capacity to reason at all. They are so overcome with emotion that it astounds me they can even function in society at all.

Too often guns are shown to be totems of power, the only way to deal with a conflict, and as a symbol of masculinity. It's stupid. I personally began to feel less powerful whenever I carried a gun. Living in fear while going about my business just made me feel weak and paranoid.

Exactly right. And it's self feeding as long as they are armed.

I challenge all gun owners to stop living in fear and being weak and paranoid. It's no way to go though life.

Here's a much better idea.