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PLEASE SPARE ME THE DEFENSE OF SELF, LOVED ONES AND COUNTRY ARGUMENTS

So there has been another mass shooting, and the pro-gun-control folks are already talking gun-control measures and the anti-gun control folks are talking mental health, defense of self, family and country.

I am tired of this conversation. In light of what happened in Charlottesville earlier this year, and to Philando Castile last year, I know that these are just delusions of grandeur chatter from the pro-gun group. Chat of primarily weak men relying on guns to help them feel masculine, a masculinity that is lazy, toxic and wouldn't be masculine in any other part of the world.

I am not a violent person, have shot a rifle once in my lifetime, have no need to have a gun, but it would be nice to know that these gun-rights people, when debating policies that affect the common good,  would actually be sincere and walk their talk when they have to. But they are fundamentally weak people, with their guns serving as a mask of masculinity they are trying desperately to belong to.

I can no longer take this conversation seriously after Charlottesville and Philando. In the Philando instance a law-abiding gun-owning man was extra-judicially killed by government. Not only did pro-gun folks not come to his aid on site, but the NRA, the organized representative for pro-gun views and people, stayed silent, conveying clearly the message that when the government becomes tyrannical, gun owners will be happy to be its b*tches.

But lets give them the benefit of the doubt and say they were too disorganized at the time to deal with the Philando incident. Fast forward to Charlottesville. A group of people under the flags of Nazis and the Confederacy ANNOUNCED days in advance they would storm Charlottesville. Gun owners/NRA stood still. They sat there and watched flags that had been defeated by their ancestors and decided to be punk-asses and give them a welcome mat. In the 1800's and the 1900's Americans defeated these flags, in 2017 gun owners/NRA members showed that America's declared enemies are its daddies. These people aren't defending themselves, their friends, or their country. They subscribe to a masculinity that is both toxic and one they haven't been admitted to-they NEED their guns to FEEL like men, because when s**t hits the fan, they won't be men.

A few years ago I told one of my friends how my oldest brother died. She replied "wow, couldn't they spare him the suffering and just shoot him?" to which I replied "oh, no, he wasn't murdered in the U.S. had they shot him, they would have signaled to their enemies that they are not men, there, only cowards use guns."

At the end of the day, the pro-gun people are right, people kill people; specifically people subscribing to a toxic masculinity kill people. Whether they have guns or not, they will kill people, but whether they have guns or not, they will kill more or less.

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