Well... dammit. I used to have a pretty clear-cut platform on this issue: guns are for killing people, that's that, so no, we don't need to have them. People cry about how they want to use them for target practice: great, yes, please get better at learning how to kill other people. Then hunters bitch about how the countryside is simply becoming overrun with deer that need to be killed - well, asshole, if you hadn't pushed out and killed its natural predators maybe this wouldn't have happened. And how many hunters kill things just to kill something and waste the stupid animal anyway...

But then I visited my relatives out in rural Idaho and I became aware of a few other things. They really do need rifles to protect themselves against wild creatures, like when my uncle Robert was charged by a grizzly and shot it down from horseback. He lives on a ranch in the middle of wilderness, you know, they need firearms, it's not recreational or compensating for a small penis. It's a valid piece of equipment like a saddle or a truck.

And a friend of my father's has a large gun collection, he's an afficionado of foreign and historical firearms. He doesn't leave them questionably stored in a glass tantalus cabinet, nor hidden under his bed or in the closet for kids to find. He has them locked up in a vault made of a steel door and 10" concrete walls. He's a very responsible gun owner who doesn't make mistakes, I think it'd be a shame for someone to lose an historically significant gun collection like that.

At the same time, I'm still very against the bill recently passed in MN that legalized concealed handguns. A handgun is only meant to kill people, only meant to be used on other people. It's not a self-defense weapon against wild animals, it's not a hunting tool. Someone who wants to carry a pistol on their person anticipates getting to use it at some point: if they didn't, they wouldn't desire to carry it on their person. It's complete bullshit to say, "I want to pack a pistol on me, but I hope to God I never have to use it." Already someone like this is shelving the responsibility for assaulting/murdering someone else upon circumstances instead of owning up to their own actions. That's not the kind of mentality I'm comfortable with associating with consealed handguns, someone who voluntarily lapses into a fugue state wherein they consider themselves given carte blanche to fire upon anyone in their environment because they feel circumstances "pushed" them into it, not because of any decision on their own part for which they might need to be punished. All the concealed handgun bill does is make crime easier for criminals (only a fucking idiot places all his stock in a weapon which can be taken and used against him) and set the stage for irresponsible potential criminals to abuse their privileges.

When the bill was passed, the next day I saw a newspaper that featured on its front page a line of people waiting to apply for their handguns. The first person in the picture was a really simple-looking farmer in jeans and a flannel shirt, positively beaming with boyish anticipation at getting to play with a gun, boy-oh-boy. A few people behind him was a midlife-crisis type living his escapist fantasy, snow-white hair parted down the middle and styled in such a manner that gave me to believe he was trying to project an image rather than just spruce up; he wore a long black/brown leather duster (the strikingness of which was ruined with his big goofy white sneakers) and he leaned cockily against the wall with an expression of laid-back smugness, as if assuring the cameraman, "Don't you worry, podner, they'll be justice on the streets soon enough." Someone that entrenched in a fantasy realm likely holds a questionable perception of right and wrong, and I regret the society that gives him a gun to hide on his person.

I mean, what the fuck. If you want to be a badass, learn a goddamn martial art. Confront your opponent, defend yourself, deflect attacks, opt to not use deadly force. That's honor, that's skill. The only skill in using a gun is moving up from "hideously wounding and permanently maiming" to "out-and-out killing". Self-defense, my ass. People who desire a handgun to carry around town truly are trying to compensate for feeling like less of a person in other ways. And this society is all about buying things to feel complete, rather than actually taking the time and effort to study yourself and make the substantial corrections to empower yourself. People think they can buy "cool" with an outfit; now they want to buy "effectual" with a gun. God damn them to hell.