I know there are people in my life who are uncomfortable with and even afraid of firearms, and who are most definitely uncomfortable with my interest in guns. I even feel like some people I once considered friends now avoid me because of my interest in firearms.
Has anyone else experienced this? Just curious.
I'm in the process of losing a friend - my oldest and at one time closest friend - over firearms right now. It's been ongoing for a couple of months.
His wife joined some non-denominational new age "hippy" church and the church is devoutly anti-gun, putting on gun buybacks, etc.
She (the wife) talked my friend of 30 years in to going, and now about once a week I get confrontational posts on Facebook with anti-gun links along the lines of "so what do you think about this?", with the links pointing to huffington or NYT or Chicago tribune anti-gun opinion pieces.
Invariably, since their friends can see the post on my wall, I get a herd of hippy anti-gunners all posting link after link of emotional bullcrap about why guns are the most evil objects on the planet and most assuredly must possess anyone who looks at one to go forth and commit mass homicide.
I'm getting pretty tired of "justifying" my right to self-defense, my right to carry a gun, and my right to own "weapons of mass destruction" to the couple.
Although I do love posting pictures of my belt-feds in response to their anti-gun crap.
The couple, and by extension other members of their church, have REALLY singled me out because I'm an NRA multi-discipline instructor, Chief range safety officer, Illinois State Police approved concealed carry instructor, public rights activist, and in general the pro-gun "bad guy" local public figure that they can specifically target.
Whatever, I don't mind the constant debates - but it is a waste of time as I'm not going to change their holier-than-thou attitude or holy-crusade-against-gun stance.
Religious zealots who have integrated anti-gun views in to their doctrine are a dangerous group - you can't ever convince them otherwise because their views now link the gospel with absolute pacifism.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not your typical chest-thumping redneck type who espouses violence as way to end evil. On the contrary - I'm a pacifist Buddhist which many of you would undoubtedly consider a "liberal hippy" in my own right! But I still fundamentally understand that life carries value, that there is evil in this world, and that - if me or my family is attacked - I will defend those lives up to and including my dying breath, because life is precious, and it is my duty to defend those I love even if it costs me my own life in the process.
As an example of their religious dogma when they attacked my religion specifically; "As a Buddhist, shouldn't you shoot to wound or not shoot at all, because all life is sacred?"
My answer; "I don't shoot to kill. I don't shoot to wound. I shoot center mass where the arterial cluster is to create blood loss and promote rapid unconsciousness, in order to stop the threat as fast as possible. If someone dies following that, it is because they made the conscious decision to attack me and with their decision comes grave risk - so no, if they die, that's on them, not me."
And so it goes.. round and round.
There are some "New Age" religions popping up here and there, churches "worshipping God", which don't even quote from the Bible or any other established text, who nod towards a supreme being. But those new churches don't have the codified rules of Catholicism, or Judaism, or Buddhism, or any of the other established religions.
These new churches are nothing more than Political Cults, and the founders have a very real agenda.
Keep an eye out for it, because taking your guns away is ONE of those agendas, and they are pursuing it with full religious fervor and zealousness.
