Gun rights are not a liberal vs. conservative issue.

Why has the national conversation about gun-rights and gun-control become a Left vs. Right, Liberal vs. Conservative, Democrat vs. Republican issue? In fact, it's by definition the liberals who should be most in favor of personal liberty. I don't understand this nation.

Intelligent, otherwise reasonable, liberals and progressives I know have gone off the rails about how GUNZ ARE EVIL! as badly as (presumably) intelligent and reasonable conservatives are unable to think sanely regarding "Obamacare" or [insert flame-war issue here]. But this makes no sense. Why should guns be a liberal vs. conservative issue any more than computers or road signs or sugar?

Although my recent essay about gun rights was not about pressing for more guns in more hands, I do urge more liberals and progressives to become gun-owners, or else the armed part of our nation will consist only of the military, police, criminals, and conservative Republicans. Is that where you want to live?

Greater regulation of regular citizens' gun-rights only makes us less free and less safe from the bad guys (see Argument 6: My Experience with Bad Guys. Dealing with the root disease in our nation is the only path toward ending the problems we face. See this thread about how many crimes are averted by gun-carrying civilians. See this article for one example beyond my own that I cited in my essay.

I know the argument against guns: "But they're killing our kids!" I already addressed that in my essay in the Other things that contribute to human death section. Guns are not even one of the main threats to our children. If you discount that argument, you're helping me make my point here. Are you fighting to remove children's access to grain and sugar? They're far more dangerous than guns, but I hear no national outcry to further regulate those things, because there's too much money to be made there, and obesity kills us in a far less-dramatic fashion.

What makes me sad (beyond our national sickness) is that no amount of reasonable argument will make any difference to the closed-minded. For (many) liberals and guns, it's the same as how no reasonable argument in the world can put extreme conservatives back on the rails when it comes to national healthcare reform, taxes on the ultra-rich, separation of church and state, and so on. If you mock Republicans about those things, how can you feel okay about your doing the very same thing about gun-rights?

Right now, if you're putting together a straw-man arument, thinking about ways to derail the conversation, unable to hear me above the screaming "HE'S WRONG!" in your head, please pause and consider for a moment. I even got a "Fuck you" response last week by someone who went on to write a pair of non-respondable posts, including this line:

"Some issues do not have two sides. They do not deserve reasoned debate. Racism. Same-sex marriage. Equal opportunity. Universal health care. Gun control." In another of her posts on the subject: "Comments closed. I'm not going to debate any of these points. I see no reason to."

This is emblematic of intellectual blindness: "I'm right and everyone else is wrong. End of story. Gun control is not the same as equal rights. Trying to discuss that does not reflect my "white male privilege" (from her post's title). In fact, I'd like to see people of all colors and genders and economic backgrounds have the same gun-rights.

Perhaps the root of our national problems is not just what I wrote about here, but also how we become blinded by what we feel and become closed to reason. I don't have "feelings" about my guns; in fact, they're rather mixed, as I spent a lot of my life listening to the unconsidered liberal line that guns are bad. No, they're tools, and the only feeling I have about them is comfort when facing overwhelming threat.

That is something every human wants.

Chris