Forgive me, while I rant a bit...
I'm letting myself do this, because I see others in the Substack world ranting from time to time, and this is just SO annoying.
Saturday, October 28th, 2023
Dear Freedom Friends,
Given what happened on October 7th, I find this meme to be offensive.
I just came across this ridiculous meme in a Facebook Post shared by a perfectly nice person who lives on my island. Whereas she shared it forward, when I see crap like this, my internal warning alarms go off instantly. This meme isn’t worth the pixels on your screen. It's shallow, simplistic, offers a black & white perspective, and is a total distraction from rational and complex discussions on the topic of gun ownership.
The lack of logic is obvious. First, what do you think “cowboys” did with their revolvers? Just shoot at rattlesnakes and tin cans? Second, you can hunt ducks with any gun - and shotguns were a gun of choice for American pioneers protecting themselves from wild animals (as well as dangerous humans). Third, calling the weapons our fellow citizens in the military use on a regular basis a “murder weapon” is ignorant and disrespectful.
The AK-47 and similar weapons are used for violence prevention a 1,000 times more often than they are used to commit violent acts. They are tools that keep privileged people who live on my island SAFE from foreign aggression far more than people in my community seem to realize. And that's just a sad, hard fact of living on Earth amongst human beings.
At no time in human history have humans been safe or non-violent. Native American tribes raided one another for centuries, even tiny Amazonian tribes experienced murder, the Aztecs were bloodthirsty butchers, the Incas not much better, and so the story goes.
What needs to be discussed is how human beings share, manage their emotions, deal with challenging stimuli, cope with scarcity, and keep their brains engaged - rather than blindly parroting whatever the folks around them are saying.
The narrowing effect of the “echo chamber” in communities where one viewpoint is prevalent is dangerous. I’m appalled to see otherwise intelligent people becoming more and more didactic by the minute.
It is especially annoying to live on an island that is insulated from local and international violence by a moat and the beneficial side effects of having the world's most powerful military — and listen to people ranting about guns, the military, and war. Of course, who rants the most? Those with little or no experience of the three.
When I was living alone in the desert, I was surrounded by hundreds of thousands of acres of open land. I had limited cell service, the fastest police response time would be 50 minutes (if they found me, given that my uncle's gravel driveway has no sign where it branches off of the main road), and my only protection came from my weapons, my daily and nightly training, a relatively low perimeter fence, and two dogs.
What does a wise woman do under these circumstances? She goes to bed every night with a loaded shotgun and a loaded handgun next to her bed. If someone broke in my bedroom window or came at me from the front room, I'd shoot to kill. Without hesitation. Because, otherwise, they’d kill me.
Today, it’s been three weeks, since armed Hamas fighters broke through southern Israeli borders and went on a murderous rampage, ending well over a thousand lives. With machetes. With knives. With guns. With grenades. With fire. With their hands.
The timing of this meme is seriously thoughtless. If the people living in kibbutzim (plural for kibbutz: a community, usually an agricultural one in Israel, based on a high level of social and economical sharing, equality, direct democracy and tight social relations) in southern Israel had been allowed to own and train with shotguns, handguns, and automatic assault weapons for self-defense, they could have done a lot more than hide in a safe room (without a lockable door) while they and their community were massacred. In fact, if they’d been armed, maybe Hamas wouldn’t have attacked to begin with? One more example of the preventative power of weapons — and your enemy knowing you are strong enough to protect yourself.
Here’s my revision of this ridiculous meme (without images, sorry).
THIS IS A SHOTGUN.
You can shoot down a hallway and definitely hit an intruder. In fact, you can shoot four or six or eight times, clearing a path for escape or eliminating many assailants.
THIS IS A HANDGUN.
You can carry it concealed, with extra magazines, and defend yourself or your community from unexpected violent crimes, including random shooting events.
THIS IS AN AUTOMATIC ASSAULT WEAPON.
- You can train with it and know that, under extreme circumstances, you may be the only one who can save lives.
- You can join the military and protect human beings during a crisis.
- You can become a wildlife protection agent in the savannas of Africa, protecting the last of the world's elephants and rhinos from poachers.
Don’t own a gun? That’s fine. Others who own and train with guns will protect you. But, if you’re scared of guns, like I used to be? Get educated. Use them. Train with them. Connect with people who do own guns. Go to the shooting range. Learn.
Once you’re capable of handling a gun, your fear will be replaced with skilled respect.