I don't like guns.
I don't have anything against you owning them if you want to, but I don't like them. In fact, I prefer that the people around me don't have guns. To me, guns are a lot like mass media journalists; they are protected, they cannot be effectively regulated despite anyone's best efforts, they are ostensibly necessary to a free state and their supporters enjoy reminding us of the fact, they are everywhere you look, they are loud and obnoxious, they have potential to be part of a greater good but are just as easily a tool to be used for tremendous wrongdoing, and, like a nasty car wreck, people just seem to fixate on them regardless of their views.
When I see a gun, I see Nancy Grace; lots of hype, lots of noise, lots of misinformation, hard to look at. That's just me.
I say this with both conviction and humility... I am a journalist.
I come to your site as a member today after having spent the better part of the last year lurking as a guest only. I've read a tremendous number of posts in that time. And, in that time, I've also developed a tremendous fascination with gun culture. I'm not an "anti" but I will readily admit that I am bordering on it. And before anyone should suggest that I find someone to take me out to the range to "convert" me, let me explain that I grew up in a very pro-gun family and was schooled in the ways of the gun from a very young age. In fact, my heritage is in large part the reason that I find myself here at all (at least until the inevitable point that I am branded a troll and rendered persona non grata) .
My father you see is deceased. He was a decorated veteran, an avid shooter and accomplished marksman, a local NRA leader, a respected community leader, and an apparently well-liked member of this board until his passing. The latter fact determined by my sister and I only upon delving into his personal affairs after his death. Now, as much as some of you might be tempted to offer some form of condolence or other well-meaning expression, please withhold doing so. I have no regret in the fact that my father has passed. Nor does my sister.
The man, despite being revered by virtually all who met him, despite being nearly locally iconic in his role as a neo-classic Texas gentleman rancher, and despite his lifelong devotion to all that is considered sacred by the multitudes of pro-gunners here and elsewhere, was possessed of certain peculiarities of personality that rendered him considerably less beloved in the eyes of those who knew him inside his residence. While I will spare all the burden of a detailed disclosure, let it be known simply that he was not the kind of man that most parents would prefer their children to visit. He was also not the kind of man most parents would wish their daughters to marry. And, despite his public remonstrations regarding gun-control and its' infringement upon responsible, God-fearing American heroes such as himself, he was, as several members of our family might argue, perhaps the last person on the planet that should be afforded the right to own a firearm. I argue that now, as a 38 year-old woman, just as readily as I wish I could have when I was an 11 year-old girl all too familiar with the business ends of my father's various and creatively-employed implements of assault.
Yet, despite this, I am able to separate the tools from the man wielding them. Despite the horrors inflicted by my father, I managed to find and marry a good man, have a fulfilling relationship, raise two daughters of my own to near-adulthood, and cultivate a successful career as a nationally syndicated writer. Indeed, my sister was not so lucky. Nor was our mother.
Still, and again, I don't like guns. I don't like them around me. But as a borderline "anti" I would like to give gun owners everywhere the benefit of the doubt. I try very, very hard in fact to do so. Sometimes it is profoundly difficult for me. You see, I would wager that among the ranks of this board there are no small number of self-appointed defenders of individual right who, like my father, wear but a very thin gloss of veneer over the churning internal stink of hatred and depravity that is their true being. But understand that I am a reasonable and rational woman who knows that at least some of you are truly as good a group of people as you proclaim to be, and, as such I do not wish to color all of you with the same crude and ugly stroke of brush with which I am about to obliterate the last remnants of my father's ill and lurid history. Those, you, deserve at least that much from a borderline "anti" like me.
But tell me...
Why then, given the fact that "I" am capable of giving "you" that benefit; given the fact that I am able to objectively reason through the illogisms that struggle so hard to compel me to not only write you off, but also commit my considerable energy and resources to supporting, with pen and with pocketbook, the cause of those that would see your rights decimated and ground to shards... WHY THEN do you choose to disparage me and others of those like me?
Why do you call us sheep?
Why do you assail the fact that some of us, like me, choose to live in San Francisco?
Why does our concern with the environment and healthcare result in invective?
You see, there are many, many of us out here who all of you consider "antis' who are not at all. There are some of us who, were we to give in to the temptation to slip logic in kind at the butt of your own tendencies to do so, would have damn fine reason to be "antis", would be very good at it, and would represent a considerable benefit to the cause of your nemeses.
We are legion. And our words are mightier than bullets. And we don't run out of ammo.
So, the next time you feel like hurling wisdom at us, the next time your own brush feels heavy and wanting for a target, consider that there are a few of us who haven't yet decided which ring to throw our dogs in. And our dogs are big. And our dogs are hungry.
With regards,
A loud, powerful, logical, well-connected, female and liberal California journalist who really doesn't want to take away your guns, but leans further in that direction every time she sees your lack of personal self-control.
I don't have anything against you owning them if you want to, but I don't like them. In fact, I prefer that the people around me don't have guns. To me, guns are a lot like mass media journalists; they are protected, they cannot be effectively regulated despite anyone's best efforts, they are ostensibly necessary to a free state and their supporters enjoy reminding us of the fact, they are everywhere you look, they are loud and obnoxious, they have potential to be part of a greater good but are just as easily a tool to be used for tremendous wrongdoing, and, like a nasty car wreck, people just seem to fixate on them regardless of their views.
When I see a gun, I see Nancy Grace; lots of hype, lots of noise, lots of misinformation, hard to look at. That's just me.
I say this with both conviction and humility... I am a journalist.
I come to your site as a member today after having spent the better part of the last year lurking as a guest only. I've read a tremendous number of posts in that time. And, in that time, I've also developed a tremendous fascination with gun culture. I'm not an "anti" but I will readily admit that I am bordering on it. And before anyone should suggest that I find someone to take me out to the range to "convert" me, let me explain that I grew up in a very pro-gun family and was schooled in the ways of the gun from a very young age. In fact, my heritage is in large part the reason that I find myself here at all (at least until the inevitable point that I am branded a troll and rendered persona non grata) .
My father you see is deceased. He was a decorated veteran, an avid shooter and accomplished marksman, a local NRA leader, a respected community leader, and an apparently well-liked member of this board until his passing. The latter fact determined by my sister and I only upon delving into his personal affairs after his death. Now, as much as some of you might be tempted to offer some form of condolence or other well-meaning expression, please withhold doing so. I have no regret in the fact that my father has passed. Nor does my sister.
The man, despite being revered by virtually all who met him, despite being nearly locally iconic in his role as a neo-classic Texas gentleman rancher, and despite his lifelong devotion to all that is considered sacred by the multitudes of pro-gunners here and elsewhere, was possessed of certain peculiarities of personality that rendered him considerably less beloved in the eyes of those who knew him inside his residence. While I will spare all the burden of a detailed disclosure, let it be known simply that he was not the kind of man that most parents would prefer their children to visit. He was also not the kind of man most parents would wish their daughters to marry. And, despite his public remonstrations regarding gun-control and its' infringement upon responsible, God-fearing American heroes such as himself, he was, as several members of our family might argue, perhaps the last person on the planet that should be afforded the right to own a firearm. I argue that now, as a 38 year-old woman, just as readily as I wish I could have when I was an 11 year-old girl all too familiar with the business ends of my father's various and creatively-employed implements of assault.
Yet, despite this, I am able to separate the tools from the man wielding them. Despite the horrors inflicted by my father, I managed to find and marry a good man, have a fulfilling relationship, raise two daughters of my own to near-adulthood, and cultivate a successful career as a nationally syndicated writer. Indeed, my sister was not so lucky. Nor was our mother.
Still, and again, I don't like guns. I don't like them around me. But as a borderline "anti" I would like to give gun owners everywhere the benefit of the doubt. I try very, very hard in fact to do so. Sometimes it is profoundly difficult for me. You see, I would wager that among the ranks of this board there are no small number of self-appointed defenders of individual right who, like my father, wear but a very thin gloss of veneer over the churning internal stink of hatred and depravity that is their true being. But understand that I am a reasonable and rational woman who knows that at least some of you are truly as good a group of people as you proclaim to be, and, as such I do not wish to color all of you with the same crude and ugly stroke of brush with which I am about to obliterate the last remnants of my father's ill and lurid history. Those, you, deserve at least that much from a borderline "anti" like me.
But tell me...
Why then, given the fact that "I" am capable of giving "you" that benefit; given the fact that I am able to objectively reason through the illogisms that struggle so hard to compel me to not only write you off, but also commit my considerable energy and resources to supporting, with pen and with pocketbook, the cause of those that would see your rights decimated and ground to shards... WHY THEN do you choose to disparage me and others of those like me?
Why do you call us sheep?
Why do you assail the fact that some of us, like me, choose to live in San Francisco?
Why does our concern with the environment and healthcare result in invective?
You see, there are many, many of us out here who all of you consider "antis' who are not at all. There are some of us who, were we to give in to the temptation to slip logic in kind at the butt of your own tendencies to do so, would have damn fine reason to be "antis", would be very good at it, and would represent a considerable benefit to the cause of your nemeses.
We are legion. And our words are mightier than bullets. And we don't run out of ammo.
So, the next time you feel like hurling wisdom at us, the next time your own brush feels heavy and wanting for a target, consider that there are a few of us who haven't yet decided which ring to throw our dogs in. And our dogs are big. And our dogs are hungry.
With regards,
A loud, powerful, logical, well-connected, female and liberal California journalist who really doesn't want to take away your guns, but leans further in that direction every time she sees your lack of personal self-control.
