I Never Got “The Gun Thing”
BY Herschel Smith8 years, 10 months ago
I ended my story by saying that I felt the only way to move forward in this debate was to talk to people who did get the gun thing. That I wanted to understand the other side because, truthfully, I’d never tried to before.
A handful of gun owners — individuals with political views very different from my own — apparently read all the way through. They got the sentiment and took me up on my request and wrote to me. Because I’d prompted the discussion, I realized I needed to follow through, so I wrote back. And we’ve been talking.
I’m not claiming that I’ve begun some sort of revolution. The back-and-forth is slow going, but we’re communicating. In some instances, the conversation has remained focused on gun policy, while other email threads have morphed into discussing personal life beyond the issue at hand.
Writing to gun owners humanized the issue for me. After feeling so hopeless, the emails made me feel better. They were the only thing that did. Talking to people who owned guns and were willing to discuss that with me in a reasonable and respectful way had some immediate, and surprising, results.
I began to get “the gun thing,” as I’d dismissively termed it. A few who wrote to me pointed out that when you live in a rural community and calling law enforcement does not necessarily result in a prompt response, owning a gun for personal safety seems prudent. I’m a product of East Coast city life and — naively, shortsightedly — had never considered this.
But here’s the thing, Cara. You never really advocated or even intended to advocate disarming everyone. You never really believed in gun control for everyone, because you didn’t advocate disarming cops. That’s a problem. That means that you believe in guns, just in what you consider “the right hands.” You want the government to have a monopoly of force, and for others to be left defenseless against criminals and, yes, against their own government as well.
The example you cited about people in the countryside is shameful, and not only should you never have brought that up, your detractors should have kept their mouths shut because they don’t believe in gun rights either. Gun rights are just that – rights. They are no respecter of persons or location. Urbanites need self defense just as much as rural folk.
As for the cops you assume would be there is you call them, you do understand that they are under no legal obligation to protect you, don’t you? Not according to Warren v. D.C., Castle Rock v. Gonzales, and other decisions. Legally, the police can wait until your neighbors smell your rotting corpse before sending in the medical examiner, while they go eat doughnuts. Besides, given typical response times, the crimes are over by the time police respond.
On a larger scale, guns protect men and women from awful people like ISIS, who get off on beheading defenseless women and children, or the Taliban, who want to perpetrate female circumcision and destroy school books so that children can’t learn to read. Guns enabled our own revolution against a tyrant in England, and guns ended Hitler’s reign of terror in Europe.
You see, you know that guns are a tool with magnificent utility, an equalizer of the evil and the innocent, of the criminal and the righteous. But you still want the innocent and the righteous to be defenseless, and that says something deeply troubling about your values. I suggest a deep, quiet period of soul-searching before writing about this again.
And before you do write again, you should get up with someone like me, who can sit for several hours and show you how our side safely handles firearms, and how they can be safely deployed at the gun range. It simply isn’t enough to write emails back and forth. You aren’t really fully engaged in this issue yet. You’re just nibbling around the edges.
On January 20, 2016 at 11:02 am, Fred said:
– ‘That means that you believe in guns, just in what you consider “the right hands.”
I’ve used this argument myself. I ask if they think we should get rid of the job of cop. I tell them that I don’t think we should. Then I point out that they believe in self defense they just choose a different tactic and that I don’t want to take away their legitimate means of self defense so why do (you) they want to take mine. The usual reply being, Know it all, smug, angry-ish, confusion.
And sir, if you do ever get to shoot with Cara please mention our LORD, it is not her “values” that trouble me. And besides, with a last name like hers, shouldn’t she and her husband be wild eyed revolutionaries living in the Blue Ridge. They are 180 degrees out of whack and could use a godly adjustment. Thanks.
On January 20, 2016 at 3:48 pm, Frank_in_Spokane said:
So Herschel, I trust you actually sent her a personal response, rather than merely replying to her on your blog? ;-)
On January 20, 2016 at 4:18 pm, Herschel Smith said:
I left a comment on her blog, which was the only way I found to communicate with her. I hate it when authors make it difficult to contact them. My contact information is on the contact page. I try to make it easy. My readers are my editors and my constant feedback. That’s the way it should be.
On January 20, 2016 at 5:11 pm, Frank_in_Spokane said:
Here you go:
(Found at http://www.caramcduna.com/about-this-website/)
What can I say? Google fu … ;-)
On January 21, 2016 at 4:04 pm, jack burton said:
I am always willing to have one, two, or a hundred polite, mannered conversations with those who are on the pro-gun control side but I MUST have a clarification from them first. And that is, “How do you determine the truth of a matter?”
If they are emotional truth-seekers I see no value in engaging them at all. If they are willing to hold a belief because they “feel; strongly enough” about it in the face of facts, logic, and reason then what value is there in me wasting my time trying to get through that shield?
On January 21, 2016 at 4:46 pm, madoradataman said:
In general, I agree. However, the base assumptions of all positions has an emotional component. For example, I can get quite emotional about defending me and mine from murder or severe bodily harm, etc. I can be vitriolic in holding responsible those who would take my weapons and other defense means from me, leaving me naked and helpless in the face of the aggressor–in some quixotic belief that such measures will have good results. I can easily blame these as much as the actual perpetrators.
On January 21, 2016 at 5:47 pm, Fred said:
Decent point but I would add that history shows us that the biggest perpetrators and the biggest gun takers are one in the same. Every well armed people that has been disarmed has had large numbers of people killed off.That’s not emotion, that’s God’s children killed for the religion of state.