I try not to be political, but as a woman with a (mostly) working vagina, I get upset when idiots in this country vote with their vaginas instead of their brains* and I get upset when a piece of our country’s Sacred Paperwork is misquoted, removed from sensible and historical contexts, twisted, bastardized and tossed about like the Sunday sales section.

Also, I am not one to engage in political banter with most people, because I believe most people to be idiots, and it’s MUCH more fun to talk to them about things that will not give me a migraine.

It’s true, I asked for a Glock for Christmas. Preferably a fashionably compact one that will fit into a Chanel bag, thank you very much.

Meet my new Beretta Nano.
Conceals nicely and Otter and I won’t roadtrip without it.

Now don’t get your anti-gun panties in a wad.  I no more think that guns should be fashion accesories any more than I do small dogs. People who carry live animals this way will be man-handled in the afterlife in some horrible, bestial way.

But I have been fielding a lot of questions lately because there are guns in my house. Plenty of them.

I have fired guns of all types at a variety of targets.  I have taken classes on their proper care and handling. Hubby has all this and a concealed carry as well.  We are not guns nuts; we are not members of the NRA; we do not dream of being a contestant on Top Shot, nor do we feel like our lives could be featured episodes of Duck Dynasty (though these are both currently in the DVR).

REASON ONE: SPORT
Shooting a gun is a fabulous way to release stress and can be great fun.  Shooting clays is one of my favorites, but if you have open land, some fence line and some tin cans, I have Cute Camo Boots, some sassy Hunter Orange accessories, and a Coleman cooler that says we can make an afternoon of it.  Target shooting improves your hand-eye coordination, requires physical fitness on many levels, builds confidence, and combats anxieties regarding Reason Three.

REASON TWO: FOOD
Hubby is a big ole redneck who fishes and hunts, and I have the fish, venison, quail, turkey, goose, and duck varieties in my freezer to prove it.  Cancer treatments in the 90s left me with what we’ll call a sensitive stomach, so GMO injected pork, beef, and hormone–fed chickens from the local grocer make me (quite literally) ill.  But Field Turkeys? Free Range Goose? Duck?  Pheasant?Venison? Bring it. In my house, we don’t hunt anything we don’t eat and if we happen to hunt too much, we share it with organizations who help feed those who struggle to do so, like NC Hunters for the Hungry.**

REASON THREE (The Big One): SECURITY
We SPOIL our dogs as pets, which means they will turn on us for any savvy intruder that offers them an ice cube.  No shit, Otter will run over your Grandmother for a damn ice cube. Does this look like the face of a killer?

While Otter is indeed a CRAP GUARD DOG, his Big Boy Bark is deterrent enough for him to get us a discount on our Home Owners Insurance.  WOOF!

Some of my friends say, “we need to get the guns away from criminals”. This is a No Shit Truth. However, I’m not convinced gun-banning laws are the way to do this. Mainly because I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but Criminals do not give a shit about the laws of this land.  That’s why they are CRIMINALS for fuckssake.

And historically we know that outlawing guns that are popular today will only make different guns popular tomorrow.  After the AWB (Assault Weapons Ban) was passed, gun makers made changes in compliance, and the most popular of the new breed was used at Columbine.  The Virginia Tech nightmare was more about the insanity of the shooter and the number of clips being used on a Gun Free Zone campus than the actual pistols being fired.

And some perspective, please?  (*) According to the FBI, 323 murders were committed with rifles of any kind in 2011. In comparison, 496 murders were committed with hammers and clubs, and 1,694 murders were perpetrated with knives.

We can ban guns, and we can ban ammo, but guess what?
Being an asshole will still be legal.

Being fucking stupid (like having accessible guns in a household with people, especially those with challenges – physical, mental, or psychological) will still not be against the law.

I don’t fear guns.  I fear Crazy.  I fear Addicted.  And I fear Stupid & Unaccountable.

Crazy  put a gun in my face and car-jacked me in Texas when I was 19 years old.

Addicted put a gun in my face, threatening to take my life and then his own in Utah (and other locales).

And Stupid/Unaccountable tried to break into my home in North Carolina at 3 am one Thursday morning.

Crazy was caught (my car was recovered) and turned out to be younger than me, escaping a shitty family and looking to join a gang family instead; he was beaten half to death in his holding cell while awaiting bail. I later dropped all charges because it turned out he was manic-depressive and had some serious childhood trauma that required therapy.  Crazy includes those who are mentally unstable or in any way incapable of making sounds judgments or controlling their reactions to situations.

I divorced Addicted, who later graduated to merely Stupid/Unaccountable. His family chose to ignore his mental challenges, anger issues, and chemical dependencies (never making him be responsible for his own actions) until it was too late and he had damaged much of his life beyond repair.**

Stupid/Unaccountable were also three teens looking for their kicks in the Smoky Mountains, who in the end were NOT punished – by the HillBilly Law or their Indulgent parents (who clung to their denial as tightly as they did those stringlet home perms that look like the Governor pardoned them about 4 seconds too late). Turns out, these were the kids in school everyone feared showing up one day and shooting up the place, kids who spoke openly about “hating” a variety of people and people they thought should “die”. ****

They were genuinely surprised when I met them at my cellar door with a loaded 45.

Hubby, for the record, slept through the entire home invasion episode, in which I chose to light the house up like a Christmas tree, sending them running to the getaway car, which they drove past the front of the house as I waved the 45 like I was on a Mardi Gras float.

Hubby came downstairs the next morning and found me asleep on the couch, with the pistol and an empty glass on the coffee table beside me.  With a straight face, he asked, “Well, what did you do last night?”  Reason #219 that I love that man.

This is not a simple matter. Those who say it is and use absolute languages are not doing the rest of us that share this rock with them any favors with their stupidity.

Human beings are capable of amazing compassion and love as well as devastating cruelty and violence. Not everyone needs or wants to be armed. But everyone needs to listen, learn(**), and engage in the conversations that shape our country’s future.  We should be more afraid of apathy then of assault rifles.

I like it here. I want to make it better. I think most people do too. After all, where else could a tomboy debutante find a place, a home, a voice if not the Land of the Free?

* A President can’t take away your birth control, dumbass, and the Supreme Court does not make laws.  Were you just stoned throughout your fucking Civics class in high school?  Sheesh.

** http://www.nchuntersforthehungry.org/

***  One Crazy parent still throws money at Hypno-Hustler, thinking it will make him Whole.  However, she is blind to the truth that money doesn’t recognize or respect Assholes.

****These are always the most heart-breaking (to me) in interviews after school shootings, right?  “Everyone knew Timmy was an angry kid who scared the other kids.  How could his mother not have known he was capable of this?”

(*)http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-11
(**)According to Senator Feinstein, who authored the original AWB (Assault Weapons Ban) so-called “assault weapons” have been used in 385 murders since the AWB expired in 2004, or about 48 murders per year. But there were 8,583 total murders with guns in the United States in 2011, meaning “assault weapons” were used 0.6% of the time.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-11