Since 2005 when I retired from the National Guard I had no desire to touch a weapon again. While I was at best an average soldier for both my active duty time and the long boring but often frustrating years as a weekend warrior, I had been long ready to turn my attention to other more constructive interests.
Not that I opposed private citizens owning firearms as long as they were, in my opinion, reasonable. And what I considered reasonable during this period was anything from an AR-15 downward to hunting rifles, shotguns, to whatever handgun a person fancied.
Don’t jump down my throat, my beliefs at that time had been shaped by my military service and the 1980’s movie culture which portrayed a true man by how big a weapon he could field. For me personally, my new fixation revolved around scuba diving and surfing, even though I was absolutely pathetic at trying to ride a wave.
I kept this attitude until the mass murder of small children at Sandy Hook Elementary. Seeing and hearing the reports of that nightmare I was disgusted with my years of indifference. A total of twenty-six people were killed in cold blood by a disturbed individual because the shooter’s idiot mother had an indifferent attitude when it came to accountability for the killing machine she owned.
In a weird way I felt dirty for my nonchalance when it came not only to civilian ownership of AR-15’s but semiautomatic pistols being owned by people who had never trained with such devices. For that reason I turned almost completely against civilians owning such weapons. I personally couldn’t fathom a reason why I would ever own anything more dangerous than a kitchen knife, that was until recently.
Having lived and interacted with numerous obnoxious assholes steeped in the now cult-like status of gun culture, I kept my anti-gun beliefs to myself. I’m not an activist and in fact I would suck at trying to convince anyone it was raining outside even if I walked into a building soaking wet. But not sharing my “radical” views allowed me to listen to the true feelings and beliefs of those who lived and dreamed for the chance of using their version of the precious on whomever was their perceived boogeyman.
You would think Trump winning the 2024 election would have calmed the hyperactive blood lust of his supporters. Controlling every branch of the federal government should have by all rights made them giddy by being able to own the “libs.”
But no, they’re still just as angry and disturbed as if Vice President Harris had won in a landslide and began picking every BLM, Antifa, LGBTQ+ and capitalism-hating activist she could find to her cabinet. Right-wing media is still buzzing with how Trump is going to seek revenge and retribution on all the radical left, “enemy within” individuals who in their deranged minds have destroyed the imagined country the United States once was but never existed in reality.
Once again, when you keep your mouth shut and listen you hear shit that would scare any sane person. So I find myself in a curious position, do I stay quiet and try to ignore the country sliding closer to 1933 Germany or do I take some minimal action to protect myself.
Last Wednesday afternoon, I went out to a local gun shop and purchased a Springfield Echelon 9mm pistol. I thought handling a weapon would be like riding a bike. But devoid of any ammo, that mass of metal and carbon fiber felt alien in my hand.
I’m going to get someone at the gun shop to give me some retraining on safely handling the weapon. I know it will quickly come back to me, but I absolutely hate that idea.
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