Guns and Roses

But there is an alarming number of people who truly, naively believe that what the horrors of the Aurora shooting should teach us is that what this country needs is less restrictive gun control.

Sure. Let's all have a gun. Let's all take them everywhere. Family parties. Church. Work. Concerts. The beach. School. Amusement parks, Chuck E. Cheeses, weddings, funerals, graduation parties, bars. Yes, most especially bars.

I read a comment that insists that if just one person in that theater audience had been armed, the outcome would have been very different.

Hello, it's Colorado. I am sure lots of people were armed.

So the assumed assertion of this naive and very misguided comment is that if one of those movie patrons had been packing that night, then, in the midst of the confusion about whether it was a special effects stunt, and while the gas cannisters were filling the theater with blinding, choking smoke, and perhaps the armed attendee's child/children/date/friend/spouse was shrieking in terror or even lay wounded, and while people were panicking and running in all directions in the darkened theater, that this coincidentally armed person would have had the presence of mind and the skills to get off a precise shot that would have taken down the lunatic attacker and stopped the mayhem in its tracks.

Puh-lease. Sure. And Clinton didn't inhale. Give me a break. 

I shared my alarm about this type of thinking with Scott, who is a responsible gun owner with a gun safe and a permit. 

As I spoke the words I had this thought: This is a philosophy have unwavering opinions about. If Scott does not share them, I am not sure we can share a life together.

It was as much a lesson I learned about me as it was a lesson I learned about Scott. Thankfully, he agrees with me. He is a sportsman. He has guns with purposes. He does not walk around armed and does not want to live anywhere where everyone does. Having guns means a willingness to use them. And having them under the wrong circumstances means opportunity to use them under the wrong circumstances.  And what would have been the right circumstances to have been carrying a military assault rifle?

As my friend pays last respects to her family member, I am wondering if she thinks the answer is more guns. Because if no one had thought to bring a gun to the party, someone she loves might be here today.  I think from the safety of distance and inexperience the Facebookers touting looser gun control naively imagine something like Utopian cooperation.

It is all so simple to say what you'd do.  Until it happens to you. I am sure my friend is not wishing she'd thought to bring a gun herself.  I doubt my other friend would hold her beliefs so firmly in the same situation.