Gun zealots deserve our pity, not our anger

[SecularMotion]

With the new year comes a new attitude toward gun zealots, who are not to be confused with responsible gun owners who understand we live in a society with rules and laws.

The zealots are back in a tizzy because President Obama is using executive action to tighten background checks. Many of them hate Obama, who disagrees with the convoluted logic that solving gun violence is best done by allowing every American to purchase weapons at whim, point them at the front door and dare anyone to try coming in.

The zealots have angered me in the past and I admit it. But with 2016 comes a new response.

I don't get angry at them. I pity them. Theirs must be a tough way to live.

http://www.masslive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/01/gun_zealots_deserve_our_pity_n.html

[Nuclear Unicorn]

1. Was this written by a real journalist in a real newspaper?

They'd have had a tough time living in the Wild West, where cowboys were expected to check their weapons at the door of the saloon or with the sheriff.

They other is fear. The zealots live in it, wallow in it and are dominated by it. In their world, every moment carries the potential of requiring a shootout for self-defense.

It must be tough to wake up every morning, fearing every day might be your last. It must be tough, dropping your kid off at school and regretting that teachers don't have the weapons needed to kill the scum who might try to kill your child.

First, his "Wild West" doesn't hold water. The requirement was not universal and just because it was enforced doesn't mean it was constitutional. What the author is effectively arguing is that sheriffs be allowed to act as a law unto themselves. These same sheriffs also routinely acted in other ways we find repellent, i.e. those convicted of capital offenses weren't given the benefit of decades of appeals.

The observation about saloons doesn't hold, either. A saloon is a controlled point of entry and it is a private establishment. I am unaware of anyone demanding the law force private business owners to admit gun owners with their weapons.

"They other is fear" is obviously a typo but -- c'mon. If you want us to take you seriously as a professional journal(ist) try to catch the amateur mistakes before publication.

It must be tough to wake up every morning, fearing every day might be your last. It must be tough, dropping your kid off at school

In this past week I have seen repeated references to Sandy Hook and derivative statements from the pro-gun control side. It is the one emotional button they keep pressing over and over again. The gun control side wants us to be scared that the next Adam Lanza is lurking just around the corner.

Moreover, it isn't even confined the the Adam Lanzas of the world. Every gun owner is supposed to be subjected to whatever rights-trampling scheme the author wants because they too are the threat. Over a hundred million gun owners are prejudged to be as dangerous as a handful of the violently mentally ill and terrorists. Fear those hundred million and their elected officials and their advocacy groups.

If not for this fear, what argument do they have? Yet, rights supporters are supposed to feel ridiculed over wanting to keep a side arm in the off chance they encounter an Adam Lanza.

Obviously the intent of the author -- and presumably poster -- is not to express pity but, rather, ridicule and derision; but it is difficult to feel any of those by such weak offerings that preen with so much unfounded pride.

[ileus]

2. If only everyone would live their own life, and leave others alone.

[beevul]

3. Are you still trying to pretend that some sort of majority holds that view?

Feel free, just remember that it doesn't apply in this reality.

[SecularMotion]

4. Gun owners are a minority in this country

and gun zealots are a minority of gun owners.

[beevul]

5. And anti-gunners are a yet smaller minority.

Too bad, so sad.

[DonP]

6. I'd go with few, cheap and lazy as descriptors