I Remember When I Stopped Being Afraid, Needing To Own Gun(s), And Began Living

I won't be working to convince anyone to own a gun, or stop owning a gun, this is only something you can do. However I can share my own story of when I stopped being afraid, stopped feeling like I needed gun(s) in my life, and I began living this amazing life I was given.

First I do not come from your average sub-urban family, I grew up owning guns--I love shooting guns. I was given a .50 caliber black powder rifle for my 10th birthday, and have own almost any known gun from .22 caliber rifles, and 9MM pistols, to semi, and fully automatic AK-47s, SKS, and others. Take me shooting today, and I will still have fun--I am not anti-gun, I'm anti-fear, which guns are a symptom of.

Living Life With A Gun On Your Body
I have have lived with a gun on my body for almost two years. I'm not talking about a gun in the closet or gun case, I'm talking a gun on my hip, and always close-by in a bag. The energy of having an instrument of death on your hip, and always on your mind is no way to live. If you are pro-gun, and anti-cell phone, you are full of shit in my book. I can get a job, do homework, and stay in touch with my loved ones on my cellphone, my gun only had a single purpose--killing. The energy you have to endure in your life, with a gun at your side is no life I want to endure, my children, or any other loved one. If you think you can handle this energy, you are probably in denial about how other negative energy around you is impacting your life.

Living Life With Guns All Around You
If you are advocating for guns in schools, and the workplace, I invite you to go work in Washington DC for a year, or any place where every meeting you go to, you have to go through metal detectors. This is just one of the by-products of having guns, is then you have to be sure of who has a gun, and the concept is front and center in everything you do--slowing life at every turn. I have spent days on end in rooms full of law enforcement, and criminals ,all with guns, in both situations I did not feel safe, I always felt hyper aware of danger, and could taste the fear, it is present in the air at all times.

Living Life After Having A Gun Pointed At You
I have had a firearm pointed at me three separate times in my life. Once it was the boyfriend of a girl I dated, second time it was a junkie I was doing drugs with, and the third time it was a police officer on the side of the freeway. All three times, if I had a gun on my, I can guarantee I would have ended up dead. The fact that I did not have a gun, deescalated the situation, and I am alive to tell the story. I know from my own experience that gun does not equal safety, so no matter how much you tell me how all these situations we read about could have been deescalated with a gun, I'm just not going to believe you. You live in Hollywood, not reality.

Guns Are All About Our Own Personal Fear
Every person I know that owns a lot of guns is afraid. EVERY SINGLE ONE! The ones that I know who have hoards of guns, are some of the most afraid people I know. Afraid of everything, and everyone. How you can tell is that the most afraid have way more guns and ammo than they could ever use when their house is attacked by anyone(its coming, be sure of it), yet with every announcement of Obama coming for their guns, they go buy a fresh round of ammunition. #fear

I remember when I began to stop being afraid, and realized gun ownership was a game for the fearful. When I asked my step-father to buy a pistol from him, and he said he didn't have the guns in the state. I knew he did, because I just talked to my brother and sister who both had the guns at their house within the month. He just didn't want to sell to me, because I was liberal--he was afraid of me. I had become the enemy, by doing nothing except having a liberal bend. It wasn't anything about gun ownership, because I do not believe in gun legislation, it was something entirely else that he disagreed with--regardless, I was the enemy now.

Ironically he asked me about a year later for information about cell phone surveillance, and I played dumb--can't help you man. Can't help you with knowledge that will actually keep you safer in 2015 than any gun, cause you know, I'm the enemy. ;-( If you live in fear land, you have to cling to your gun, knowledge ain't gonna help you, that is a liberal way of thinking.

In the end I don't want to live in a fearful world where everyone has guns. You know what happens to people having bad days? They get shot. You know what happens when there are misunderstandings? You get shot! You know what happens when you have disagreements? You get shot. There are no conversations, understanding, or help--solutions are black or white (probably white--wink wink racists).

I say all of this knowing my 15 year old daughter is going to school within an hour of the latest shooting. Which isn't new Oregonians, remember our buddy Kip Kinkel? It will happen again, as soon as all y'all forget. I don't want her going to school needing a gun, or even metal detectors. I want to live in a world where we can feel safe, and that isn't a world where everyone is gun tot'n. That feeling you have with your gun in hand isn't safety, I'm sorry, you are misguided. It is a view that works for you in the country, but not for much of the world that lives in a city. 

I am not preaching that the government to legislate away our guns. It is up to each of us to reach a place where we stop being afraid. Stop being afraid of our government. Stop being afraid of the brown people that we aren't familiar with. Stop being afraid of people with the religion we aren't part of. I've traveled the world, from podunk Oregon, to East LA, to purportedly dangerous places in Europe and North America, and I can say I was safe not because of guns, I was safe because of people, and my own behavior.

I'm already on my journey towards feeling safe. I'm not here to convince you. I just want to share my own thoughts, on my own blog, in my domain around how I feel. I'm not poisoning your Facebook or Twitter conversation with my thoughts, just sharing in my space--you can read or not. You go ahead and create a world where everyone individual has a gun, I'm guessing it will look similar to the world where everyone has a car. Individuals rolling around, with no love for other people they do not know, and getting a larger and more automatic car to make sure they are safe, and we develop everything in the world to accommodate this dystopian vision, rather than a more sensible alternative.

For me. I am enjoying this life given to me, something that was harder for me when I was younger, and afraid. I'm focusing on creating a world, where we don't all need weapons on our hips, where all of us can seek mental health treatment when needed, and when we have bad days, large amounts of people don't need to die.