Don’t be fooled. There is no such thing as gun rights. It is white man rights, the gun is just the symbol. There is no one more free in this country than a white guy with a gun. If a black man is even thought to have a gun in public, it’s shoot first ask questions later.
Every guy (and it’s always been, a guy) that has lectured me on guns and the 2nd amendment is full of shit. They are bad faith actors who’ve been spoon fed some talking points cooked up by the NRA in the 70s. These people aren’t constitutional scholars. It’s the only thing in The Constitution they’ve read, if they’ve even read that.
The worldview of a gun nut is one of fear. It’s always about protection and concern someone is going to take something from them. The world is out to get them. As long as the world stays a dangerous place, despite actually getting safer, their feelings are validated.
Deadly force is the only option on the table. Ask them to even consider other possibilities and they draw a blank. It’s not even up for debate. And yet, they can rattle off an infinite number of scenarios, corner cases, and outlying unrealistic situations where they need to have a gun.
Don’t for a second think they want everyone to have guns for the same reasons they do. The most generous interpretation is they think everyone should have equal protection. How practical is that when weapons and killing power is in constant escalation?
What gun nuts (and stop calling them advocates. they don’t deserve such an adult sounding label) want is the ability to enforce laws as they see fit. The rhetoric around protection is just an appeal to others who lack creativity and imagination for better solutions.
There is no such thing as gun rights, no matter what the Second Amendment says. What we have are people with a severe fetish that are lying and being intellectually dishonest.
Until we stop acting like gun nuts share the same values and principles as the rest of Americans, this problem is only going to get worse.
At this point, I literally don’t give a shit if they do take away all the guns – 100% of them. They should be forced to make the choice. When they say “you can have my gun when you pry it away from my cold dead hands”, I say don’t threaten me with a good time assholes.