Voting is live at Blogger Idol! So head over there and vote for me!
What are you voting for? It's a post about guns. And there is a lot I didn't put into that post.
For example, the usefulness of guns. Yes, they have a function. And I have a personal anecdote about their usefulness.
Uncle Brony and I were driving up to Guppy Lake, and we hit a deer. It's one of those inevitable rights of passage you have to experience when you routinely drive at night through heavily wooded, minimally populated areas in North America.
So we hit the deer. And we did what you do- we got out of the car to assess the damage.
Miraculously, the car was pretty much okay. But the deer was another story. The deer was not okay. But the deer also wasn't dead.
So what do you do?
Never in my life have I wished so much that I had a gun in the trunk. That I could instantaneously put an animal in pain out of its misery.
But Uncle Brony, who would have been an Eagle Scout if it weren't for his political objections to the anti-gay policies, was prepared. Almost. And he put the deer out of its misery. By slicing its throat open with a machete.
It was gruesome. And painful. And traumatic.
Because killing is traumatic. And it should be traumatic.
And that is the problem with a gun. It makes killing as easy as pulling a trigger. It takes away the connection to life and death. You don't have to confront the realities of mortality.
It makes killing easy. And when something is physically easy, it becomes emotionally easy.
That's an anecdote you're not going to read on Blogger Idol today. There are no anecdotes in my post. Just... 800 words about guns.
Go read it. And go vote for me.
I don't know if I'm supposed to come out and say this publicly (but I don't think they can fire me as a guest judge now! ha!) but your entry was my favorite. And I own guns. I have some seriously complicated thoughts and ideas about gun control. I know a lot of gun owners and every single one of them will tell you that they're "a responsible gun owner" and my assessment of that person doesn't always fall in line with that statement. Not like I should be the great decider on who gets to own a gun and who doesn't but I know from personal experience and informing myself on the issue that what we have now is broken and there are too many guns out there (both legal and illegal)
ReplyDeleteThank you! I'm so glad you appreciated the post. :) My thoughts about guns are more complicated than this too, but condensing the whole thing into 800 words or less... you've got to abandon nuances.
DeleteI'm personally not a gun lover because I lived couple of wars but I have a closet in my house full of guns. My husband and his family are all hunters and raised both our boys with guns. We never had an issue and they're used responsibly. If someone had bad intentions, they're going to find a way to steal a gun or get it somehow. I can go on and on. Your post was incredible!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much. Responsible use is essential, but so is asking the hard questions about how we treat guns, as a society. It's a conversation that the "responsible use" argument usually takes a back seat in. :(
DeleteI voted for you last week- so happy to see you still in the competition! :)
ReplyDelete