Wednesday Factoid: Guns

Today's Wednesday Factoid is: What is your relationship with guns?

Uh, yikes, I gotta write about that?

I don't have much to say on it honestly. I don't like guns. I have never shot a gun. Most gun enthusiasts say that people who oppose guns are just people who are ignorant about them, and I have to admit that's completely true in my case--I don't know anything about their use and I've heard enough horror stories about how much more likely a gun is to harm its owner than to protect said owner to be entirely discouraged from owning one. I don't even like to play video games or carnival games where I have to shoot them, and I don't like to watch movies where there is gun violence.

What I will say is that I completely oppose the idea that "good guys with guns" are what stops bad guys with guns. People who are not white just having a gun or looking like they have a gun or being mistaken for having a gun have been shot dead, attacked, or punished even if they were legally allowed to have guns, while white people "open carrying" in a deliberately provocative way like they're waiting for someone to challenge them on it insist they are not a danger. Oh and of course "bad guys who don't follow the law are always going to have guns so why make stronger laws that will only restrict rule-following citizens?" is a myth. If you make it harder for people to get guns, criminals will have a harder time getting guns too, and that's been resoundingly demonstrated through the massively decreased violence in countries that respond to gun violence with regulation. You do not see mass shootings in countries that have these regulations. It literally almost never happens.

In general I don't understand love affairs with weapons, though. I'm sure there's an aspect of it that's artistic that I don't really get, because I have no interest in swords or archery or other weapons either, but some people just can't get enough. It's . . . very much not my thing.