Monday, July 13, 2009
Phillips Guns-in-Everywhere is Not the End of the World
Posted by Betsy Phillips on Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 8:44 PM
There are two issues, as I see it, and they are separate.
1. No politician should have advanced any guns-in-everywhere legislation without checking
We might call this point "Guns don't pass ridiculous pieces of legislation; politicians pass ridiculous pieces of legislation."
2. We might could start to be honest that people carrying guns a bunch of places is not the end of the world. Will people do stupid things with their guns? Yes, yes, they will. They do stupid things with their guns now.
But is it going to turn Tennessee into the Wild West?
Well, let's be honest, for a lot of people living in Tennessee, it is the Wild West already. So, I'm not actually all that excited about sticking with the status quo.
Listen, I get that, in reality, I might have a gun stripped from me and used against me. But that's not a reason to not have a gun. That's a reason to train extensively in how to use it.
And I'll be damned if I'm going to sit here and tell a woman who's been stalked or raped that she shouldn't carry because it makes me uncomfortable. Her actual feelings of safety and security trumps my imagining of potential scenarios in which something maybe might go wrong.
Listen, I know it's fun to turn every conversation about gun-rights into "You only want to have a gun because your dick is so small" v. "You are afraid of guns because you are a pussy." And we could sit here and spend all night analyzing the gender bullshit underlying statements like that.
But while men across the state argue about who has the smaller dick, women--who are people, too--use guns as a means of self-protection. Does a woman who is being stalked really have to give up her gun to go into a restaurant?
Maybe it makes me a bad liberal, but I just don't believe she should have to.
1. No politician should have advanced any guns-in-everywhere legislation without checking
click to enlarge
with their constituents who run the places the guns might go to get their input. But let's be clear--that's on those politicians and they will have to answer for that to their constituents.
We might call this point "Guns don't pass ridiculous pieces of legislation; politicians pass ridiculous pieces of legislation."
2. We might could start to be honest that people carrying guns a bunch of places is not the end of the world. Will people do stupid things with their guns? Yes, yes, they will. They do stupid things with their guns now.
But is it going to turn Tennessee into the Wild West?
Well, let's be honest, for a lot of people living in Tennessee, it is the Wild West already. So, I'm not actually all that excited about sticking with the status quo.
Listen, I get that, in reality, I might have a gun stripped from me and used against me. But that's not a reason to not have a gun. That's a reason to train extensively in how to use it.
And I'll be damned if I'm going to sit here and tell a woman who's been stalked or raped that she shouldn't carry because it makes me uncomfortable. Her actual feelings of safety and security trumps my imagining of potential scenarios in which something maybe might go wrong.
Listen, I know it's fun to turn every conversation about gun-rights into "You only want to have a gun because your dick is so small" v. "You are afraid of guns because you are a pussy." And we could sit here and spend all night analyzing the gender bullshit underlying statements like that.
But while men across the state argue about who has the smaller dick, women--who are people, too--use guns as a means of self-protection. Does a woman who is being stalked really have to give up her gun to go into a restaurant?
Maybe it makes me a bad liberal, but I just don't believe she should have to.
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