Fighting the never-ending battle against ever-more gun control laws is a matter of winning hearts and minds.
[A] huge segment of the American population…is growing increasingly alienated from a set of visceral understandings that are foundational to our worldview and our way of life. For the most part, people who think gun control might be a good idea aren’t sinister fascists, they’re not “hopeless liberals”, and they’re not die-hard communists. They are well meaning sentimentalists who haven’t thought things through at a deep level, and they’re surprisingly open to earnest dialogue.
Yes, there is a political battle to be fought on the narrow issue of gun control. But more importantly, we have an opportunity right now to open the hearts and minds of our friends, neighbors, and relatives to a broader perspective while people are asking some important questions.
At the deepest most personal level, a firearm represents the power over life and death. For a society that blissfully turns a blind eye to the dead animal on its plate, that is a very frightening thing. It feels most comfortable to cede the responsibility over life and death to the government (in the person of policemen and soldiers), even though ceding that responsibility makes us less safe in the end and – more disturbingly – strips us of a basic human dignity.
The choice to take up arms represents acceptance of ultimate personal responsibility. If you understand this, if you live this, you have it in your power to make the world a better place when you share your understanding with others. Mature people of good faith who viscerally understand their place in the world build communities that are rooted in a goodness that transcends political regime.
– Evan in a post at hillpeoplegear.com