Gun Rights
With all the mixed emotions and false information running around about guns and gun rights, have you ever had a friend or family member attack you for owning a gun? Or have you ever been approached by someone who wanted to argue about whether or not there should be stricter gun laws?
Family
Not long ago, I was approached by a family member with those exact thoughts. He had his own concerns and his own ideas of how to make this country safer. I felt like his intentions were for the best, however, this twisted side of thinking left me offended. For the sake of keeping the peace, we simply agreed to disagree and left it at that. However, I often look back and wish I had responded with something a bit more. I’m not usually one to argue, yet I wanted him to understand how his line of thinking was or could harm me. How could I get him to understand without causing a family feud?
Drunk Drivers
I’ve heard the spoon analogy several times. How blaming guns for gun crimes is just as silly as blaming the spoon for fat people. However, it just doesn’t seem to get through to people when I bring it up. Then I thought about drunk drivers. The imaginary conversation in my mind went as follows:
Imagine I, and hundreds of thousands like me, started blaming the car for drunk drivers. How would you feel if I walked up to you and said that I wanted your car taken from you and that you should use a horse instead because cars kill. Meanwhile, those drunk drivers ignore the car confiscation and continue driving. How would you feel on the road knowing that the only people driving were drunk? And here you were riding around town on a horse. Wouldn’t that make you a bit uneasy? Wouldn’t you want a car so that you could more easily evade those drunk drivers instead of feeling like a sitting duck?
Wouldn’t just the thought of me wanting your car taken from you upset you? Isn’t this suppose to be a free country? What does it matter if you had a car or not? Just because some people want to ride a horse instead of a car to be safer (which it isn’t), doesn’t mean that you should be forced to as well. Just because you own a car, doesn’t mean you drive it drunk and kill people.
Now think of the sheepdog.
Wolves vs. the Sheepdog
Say you are a shepherd guarding your sheep. You have several sheepdogs with you to keep them safe. Now say that a pack of wolves come up and start killing your sheep. Do you blame the dog? They have teeth, just like the wolves, therefore they are just as dangerous. So in order to fix the wolf problem, you pull out all of the teeth from your sheepdogs.
Now, what do you think would happen the next time the wolves came? The dogs are going to be just as vulnerable as the sheep and now the wolves have free reign to cause havoc wherever they want. That being said, do you think the dogs would be happy without any teeth? Do you think they would enjoy being numbered with the sheep and slaughtered along with them when the wolves came? You certainly aren’t going to be able to take the wolf’s teeth.
Common sense would say that the shepherd would not blame his dogs for the wolves attacking. Common sense would say that in order to stop the wolves, the shepherd should get more sheepdogs and let the dogs keep their teeth.
Blaming the dog isn’t going to stop the wolf. Just like blaming the gun isn’t going to stop the criminal. And I for one, am certainly not going to let you take my teeth. No matter how long or short those teeth are, I have a God-given right to have them. So when you start talking about taking them away, yes, I get upset.
How have you responded when someone confronts you with an adverse opinion of guns? Share it in a comment below, I would love to hear your opinion.
