Guns.

I love guns. All of my friends know this. I very openly share my affection for them with just about everyone that enters my house (Especially if they are picking up one of my younger sisters for a date). I often invite friends to come shooting with me whether they "believe" in guns or not. It is hard for me to understand my affinity towards guns. Occasionally I simply get overtaken with "gun lust", where I have an overpowering and inexplicable desire to handle, buy, discharge (safely at a designated shooting area), or simply look at a particular gun. I don't actually believe in using them for many of the purposes they are designed for, namely, killing things. I mean, I have very little desire to shoot anything living (other than the occasion stray cat I catch wondering through my back yard) so hunting really isn't something I have any desire to do. I also don't believe that guns are a particular benefit to societal safety. I'm not big on using guns as a home defense mechanism, I keep them unloaded and locked in a safe and rarely actually have any ammo for them anyways. But I readily acknowledge that my fascination with guns largely stems from the sense of power, responsibility, community, alertness and danger that peculate through my body when handling one.

I also have pings of guilt along with everything else as I feel the cold steel in my hands. This guilt stems from the knowledge that this expertly crafted piece of metal in my hand is the cause of so much pain here in the US (not to mention the world). Forget homicides, although if you are a young Black Male living in an urban area you probably can't; suicides account for far more deaths each year. According to the CDC only about 3% of those that attempt suicide by means other than guns are successful. Guns produce a success rate of over 90%. Is it any wonder that suicide deaths are much more prevalent in rural areas where guns are also more prevalent?

But guilt isn't the only conflict gun ownership presents. Gun culture is both appealing and repulsing to me. I like being part of a community, of the camaraderie that accompanies ownership. That part should be easy to understand. What repulses me is the fear-driven narrative that prevails inside these communities: "You need a gun to protect yourself because crime is out of control." Crime is at a 20 year low. "Gun registration is a government ploy to be able to take them away from you in the future" or "buy guns while you still can because Obama is going to take them away". Obama isn't going to touch your guns, no one will, and I'd be willing to bet a lot of money on that. Even more recently illegal immigration has been used as a reason to promote gun ownership, which I find insultingly absurd. I don't fault the emphasis on self-reliance or civic duty, if anything I find those reassurances, but I don't accept the gun community's morbidly pessimistic view that you should be ready to kill someone at any moment because everyone is a prospective threat.

That said I will concede that most of the reasons I use to justify my refusal to conceal carry a firearm are equally debunk-able. Firearms don't turn every conflict into a life or death situation, they don't automatically escalate a confrontation to be lethal. More people aren't harmed by concealed carriers than helped, it is quite the reverse. I often tell people that I don't want the responsibility, that I wouldn't want the death of another person on my conscience and that I don't know if I would really be able to kill another human being. The truth is that the responsibility of being a kind of arbiter or protection is part of the appeal of guns, and it is precisely the desire to keep my conscience clear that would make me an effective arbiter. And on the subject being able to kill a person, I am not particularly emotional and given the right situation, gun or no gun I believe I would.

So all this leaves me in my usual state of ambiguity, which is fine because I don't feel any need to align myself one way or another. I am plenty comfortable taking what I like and avoiding what I don't when I can.