Re:re: guns (zaibatsu.circumlunar.space), 03/23/2020
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I don't want to get too cyclical in responding to responses, but I was
scanning gopherspace  and saw a  response[1] from Shane to  a previous
post. It's  nice to know I'm  not the only individual  in gopher space
that has an affinity for firearms.

There was  a book a  few years back titled  "The Dog Stars,"  by Peter
Heller.  It  was  a  post-apocalyptic  book-  I  should  specificy,  a
post-pandemic book- that  followed a pilot and  his ex-military friend
who  were surviving  together. The  writing  style received  a lot  of
flack, perhaps deservedly. He was trying to hard to be Hemmingway 2.0,
but the topic was interesting to me.

In the  book, the main character  stumbles upon some raiders  who have
located his  semi trailer of soda  cans. They attack, but  he gets the
better of  them, because he  has a  gun, and they  do not. They  are a
group, he is alone. He ends up killing a few of them.

At another  point, the main  character is pursued by  some scavengers 
while he  is out hunting.  He survives because  he has a  grenade (or 
some  such  device,  I  can't  recall exactly,  except  that  he  was 
concussed), and they do not.                                          

Two other scenes to note: first, when he finds a woman and her father,
and brings them  back with him in  his plane; second, the  help he and
the  woman bring  to a  sort of  Mennonite community.  I'm sketchy  on
details, because it's been a while, and I only read it once.

What I'm getting at  is, the world, at any point and  in any state, is
full  of  mostly good  people,  and  some  bad ones.  Shane  mentioned
criminals, those that do not follow  laws. I'm not remotely the first
person  to recognize  that guns  level a  playing field  that no  sane
person wants to play on, but that we are sometimes forced into. In the
book, the main character abhorred violence; he had never killed anyone.
The  only reason  he even  had a  gun was  his ex-military  friend. He
wanted to survive. He wanted to help people. He did what he could, and
when he was up against evil, criminals, he did what he had to.

So, guns.  Such a social hot  topic. Weapons are a  matter of history.
They're a  matter of  humanity. As  long as  there is  a stone  on the
ground, and  someone who wants to  hurt someone else, and  someone who
wants to protect  another, we'll have weapons. We may  not always have
guns, but  we'll always  have weapons.  I'd absolutely  love it  if we
could stop  hurting and killing,  and forget the  days when we  had to
protect, but seeing as how I'm  in the protecting category and not the
hurting category, I don't feel like I'm on the wrong side, even with a
gun in my hands.

***

I don't think I  need to say this on gopher, but I'm  going to say it 
anyway, because  I care about people  and how they feel:  if you find 
guns  appalling, I  hope you  can understand  that our  difference in 
feelings is  probably primarily cultural. I  find violence appalling. 
My firm  belief is that  we should love  and help our  fellow humans. 
Guns, to me, are a tool of last resort, when it comes to turning them 
on my fellow  humans. I don't take the idea  lightly, which is partly 
why I'm processing it here. If you  want to discuss, I'm open to your 
thoughts, of any kind, at tfurrows@sdf.org.                           


[1] gopher://ascendingcreations.com:70/0/shane/fvELArD3HbstI9RYiu9cGSha83eschmk.txt