By Brian McKay
I grew up with guns around. It was a farm. We shot shit like badgers, pheasants and old cans of spoiled canned goods. That last one was a lot of fun. There were gun safety courses, hunting courses and I taught riflery at 4-H summer camp.
In any case, guns are fine. I don’t have a problem with guns and I don’t have a problem with responsible gun owners. There is a bit of worry that comes to light when I see the gun memes that are published on social media. It is just sort of a fact that everything in life has trade-offs and refusal to see and acknowledge trade-offs is indicative of a lack of reason and bit of selfishness. If you publish this crap does that also mean you aren't smart enough to keep your guns locked up and away from the kids at your house?
Again, I have no problem with responsible gun owners, but an analysis of the memes below leaves me wondering how the people that made these are in any way responsible gun owners.
This is classic and the one I hate the most. Anytime I see a gun comparison to cars I cringe. There is a difference between guns and cars right? Yep. One is an economic necessity and the other one’s primary job is killing. Nothing more need be said.
Ok, logic is important but so is historical understanding and accuracy. Guns and Bibles are not the first things banned by totalitarian governments, that would be speech. Yes a few Communist countries banned Bibles, but no totalitarian country has ever had a major push to ban guns. The irony is that the Bible has actually been the basis for some totalitarian governments; they were called Monarchies.
Gun control did not make the Holocaust possible. I get so tired of hearing this falsehood. Hitler actually loosened gun regulations for German citizens. It was a 1938 law that took guns from the Jews, but then the Nazis took everything from the Jews including art, their houses, gold fillings and eventually their lives. To think, as Dr. Ben Carson stated, that the Jews having guns would have prevented the Holocaust is horrible reasoning. 6 million Jews would have stood no chance against an organized and superior force.
While we're at it, let's dispel the unrelated rumor that Hitler was a socialist. Hitler was never a socialist. He was an extreme nationalist who used the communists as a reason to come to power. Now I feel better.
Please get history correct. I fucking hate distortions of it.
Oh for fucks sake. Because you don't like or own a gun you are weak? I don't own a gun and have no use for one, but I'll still take your dumb ass on in a bar fight.
I don't own a gun because statistically the chances for a gun related death in my household go way up if I did. Yep, I love my kid. Being smart is strength.
You know what is weak? Fear is weak. Putting up stupid memes like this is weak too.
When that poor baby grows up he is going to smack his head and think, "Someone used my image for something that stupid? Can I sue?"
Yes, the drug war is a horrific failure. They have that much right. Like the car meme, guns are nothing like drugs. Believe it or not, making guns requires a factory with expensive machinery. Meth is made in hotel rooms with crap from WalGreens. Cocaine is made in the jungles of South America and Heroine is made in Afghanistan. Both cocaine and meth require a simple plant. Furthermore, people become addicted to drugs. I only know a very few people that are addicted to guns and honestly, they are just crazy.
This meme seeks to negate the simple fact that countries that have heavily regulated guns have dramatically lower gun-related homicide rates per 100,000. Among our peer countries, we have the most guns and the most gun-related homicides per 100,000 by a shit ton. Both correlation and causality exist in this case.
Sure if you compare us to a non-economically advanced country like Somalia, we look a lot better for the homicide rate. Great. They have piracy in Somalia, let's legalize that too. I have always wanted to be a pirate.
I could go on and on. We could explore the "good guy with a gun" memes, the "Obama is going to take all our guns" memes, and the enduring classic "you'll never take my guns" meme.
And let's not even get started on the logic of your buddy that says he would have stopped the mass shooting had he been there with a gun. Yeah, that is the movies translating into your personal dream. Psychology says you'd most likely pee yourself.
It's all completely stupid and ridiculous logic and a total lack of critical thinking. I like critical thinkers. Said skill usually indicates responsibility.
So again, I don't hate guns but I realize that life has trade-offs and wish gun owners would get some of this reasoning as well. If they would just be willing to admit that we, as a country, trade-off the right to gun ownership for a higher gun-related homicide rate, I would respect them and consider them responsible. I am totally ok with that trade-off if the gun lobby and the people that make these shitty memes will just admit to it. It's pretty easy to avoid bad areas of big cities and I am more than willing to act as a human shield for my daughter if caught in a mass shooting.
Oh and please stop making these shitty memes too. Back away from the laptop gun owners.
Brian McKay is a co-founder of zenruption and has his degree in political science from Gonzaga University and his MBA from Boise State University. He thinks target shooting is a blast but the shitty logic is killing him. He recently schooled everyone on the trade-offs involved with drinking strong IPAs and his belly shows it.
Feature photo courtesy of Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license