Making Someone Else's Argument

There’s nothing better for your brain than when you take the opposite view from what you really believe and make someone else’s argument. It’s really pretty amazing and sometimes changes minds. So in the wake of El Paso and now Dayton, I tried to take the opposing view from what I believe.

I thought under what circumstance would I own a gun. When I was a kid my favorite toy was a Red Rider BB gun.

Because we lived in Portland, Maine my dad, my uncles, and assorted male relatives went out in the Maine woods for a week every winter. It was a common sight to see the cars with dead deer on the front and their proud hunters in their red shirts driving down Congress Street all winter long. Not my dad though. He never got a deer because he was too kind hearted. I think he just went to drink and have that kind of “man thing week”. However, for some reason he taught me how to shoot a 22 and a shotgun. He laughed when the shotgun threw me back about 5 yards the first time. Apparently, he wasn’t always so “kind-hearted," but I did learn to handle a gun.

I think if I lived alone in an area that was a little shady, I might think about getting a handgun...maybe. I would never get a shotgun or an AK-15. If I sit very quietly and try to think like someone who has a family and believes that he is protecting them. I get that. But protect them from what? Gangs? Yeah, depending where you live. Thieves? Got it. Crazy relatives? But do you really want to kill them? The government? I’ve heard this lot and don’t get it. If the government really wanted to invade your home and put your family at risk, they would have other methods and it wouldn’t matter how many assault weapons you had, you would be blown away and your puny cache of weapons wouldn’t help

All right, I admit I just cannot take your point of view, not when we have these killings happening seemingly every other day. Sorry, this just doesn’t add up.

We now have a country with people who have guns galore. We have a country with young men who want desperately to be a part of something, and have been “brain drained” into thinking that they are doing something heroic and wonderful by killing as many people as possible.

What is happening is killing all of us in a way. We are becoming afraid; afraid to go to the movies, the fair, the park, the grocery store, the local club, and so tragically....school.

Nope. I can’t even imagine the continued attachment to AR -15‘s and other assault rifles. Their only function is to kill human beings. Killing people with bullets that can make the liver of a human look like Jello mold dropped on the floor, and can disintegrate three inches of leg bone and turn it to dust.

I cannot replicate the argument of someone who is scared of whatever against the little broken fingers of a two year old whose mother and father died saving his life.

Your guns vs. a six year old child gunned down at a garlic festival? Your guns vs. 20 small children in school? Your guns vs. local police? Your guns vs. people in a synagogue? Your guns vs. people in a church? Your guns vs. people at a music festival? Your guns vs. teenagers in school?

Your guns?

Just can’t do it?

How can you?