“It’s not the gun you fear… it’s the shooter.”
Today, my mother shared a link on her Facebook to an article featured on the “Today” show. The article, written by the shows “Styleite” (which for those of you who are as clueless about this as I was means she is an expert at fashion, which I couldn’t imagine less use for in our world, but I digress) Jada Wong. This particular style article is covering the Elite Concealed Carry line of firearms-concealing clothing by a company called Woolrich Tactical. Anyone who knows me well enough knows that I am all for having more concealed weapons out there, as the people who make the effort to attain them are in general the kind of people who I feel should be allowed to carry a weapon, but we can discuss that in another post.
What interested me was the comments left on this article. Bearing in mind that this is a biased article by an obviously non-gun enthusiast, I was fully prepared for the inevitable “flame war” of the anonymous internet commentators, ripe with talk about violent crime and the “founding fathers”. And I was not at all let down by the content in that respect. I was shocked, however, that most of the comments (at least as far as I read) seemed to be pro-concealed carry.
But don’t get this wrong, I am not here to discuss my thoughts on guns or the people who carry them. The inspiration for me to write this came with the observation of the human thought-process (which is the reason I say much of anything, now that I think about it).
I realized all of a sudden that your views on guns is almost in direct correlation to your outlook on humanity. Whether you believe there are more good people in the world or more bad people seems to be the primary core factor in your opinion of guns and their carriers.
What’s more interesting, though, is that what most of you are probably thinking is that the ones who believe mankind is mostly good think that we should not need gun, and the ones who think mankind is more evil-inclined believe we should be allowed to legally possess firearms to defend ourselves. Which would make sense, but that’s not the case as far as I have observed. To the contrary, it seems that those who believe there is more good out there than evil, and who think that violent criminals are a minority, are the ones who think we should be allowed to carry weapons. Because then the few who are actively violent and who use firepower to equalize their ability to affect the world can be met by the many, who possess the same affective power. And those who seem more concerned with the “inherent evil” of mankind want to ban firearms entirely in the hopes that it would mean they are safe from the evil people out there.
I will spare you the conversation about the right and wrong about gun laws, because it’s all been done. I know that I personally enjoy the art of precision marksmanship, yet I would trade it in if it meant stopping the violence within our species. If someone finds a genie’s lamp and can magically make all firearms poof and disappear to never be built again, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. But, since that won’t stop people from killing, I suppose I would just start practicing the bow and arrow.
