They used to say an anti-gun liberal was merely a conservative who hadn’t been mugged yet. Now it seems to be one who hadn’t had the cluebat of being their own First Responder upside their head.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m One of Those Anti-Gun People Who Just Bought His First Firearm<\/a><\/p>\n Ilya from Michigan writes . . .<\/p>\n If you\u2019d have met me three weeks ago, you\u2019d unequivocally know my stance on guns. I was not only against the ownership of AR-15s, I was in the minority of folks who thought all private gun ownership should be illegal.<\/p>\n I\u2019m still in a bit of disbelief that there is a dangerous weapon in my house: one that more frequently contributes to accidental deaths, violent homicides, and suicides, rather than the romanticized personal protection experiences.<\/p>\n What happened? The world changed overnight and my opinion\u2026evolved.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always been a strongly opinionated person, but I pride myself on the idea that my beliefs are loosely held. Strong opinions are great, but what you don\u2019t want is to be egotistically blinded by them. I don\u2019t want to be held hostage by a belief that is no longer valid, given new information.<\/p>\n I live a pretty privileged existence. My family lives in one of the most affluent communities in Michigan. Everyone in the neighborhood leaves their doors open with bikes on the front lawn. Rarely do we worry about anything being stolen, let alone violent crime. I wasn\u2019t born with this privilege, but worked really hard to get where I am.<\/p>\n Circumstances shape people\u2019s understanding of the world, and my situation highly influenced my views on gun ownership. There was no argument, be it constitutional,\u00a0personal protection<\/a>, safety, hunting, or anything else that would change my mind and stop me from logically deconstructing your argument.<\/p>\n Guns are used in more than 20,000 suicides, 10,000 homicides, and just under 1,000 accidental deaths in the US each year. Yes, one can argue that people kill people, not guns. But I\u2019d argue that access to firearms makes it much easier to accomplish the act. I believed that at the national scale, guns were a danger to our society. I wanted no part of this.<\/p>\n For months, I heard the news of a novel virus spreading in China, which had the potential to turn into a global pandemic. This happens regularly, with Cov-2, H1N1, Ebola, MERS, etc.<\/p>\n We read about it in the newspapers, hear about people dying in other countries, watch coverage of civil unrest, and then we hit the off button and get back to our 21st century privileged American lives. It\u2019s not that we aren\u2019t worried or believe that this can\u2019t happen to us; rather, we\u2019ve never experienced anything similar to this. Our imagination can only take us so far. We think it\u2019s \u201cthem\u201d. This will just go away.<\/p>\n Then [it] got real. Countries started shutting down. Stay-home orders were being issued. Supply chains were disrupted and people were hoarding daily necessities.<\/p>\n Cracks in our supply chain became evident and we started experiencing shortages reminiscent of the former Soviet bloc. Companies were going out of business or downsizing. People were losing their jobs at an unprecedented rate.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not a prepper. I\u2019ve never left a store with more food or supplies than what\u2019d I\u2019d typically consume in a few days. I don\u2019t overreact. But the supply disruptions, along with economic uncertainty, started to worry me.<\/p>\n Are we, as a country, prepared? Am I prepared?<\/p>\n We model our future preparedness based on past worst-case scenarios. My grandmother, who lived through WWII in Eastern Europe, stashed every penny away for what she called \u201cthe dark days.\u201d The worst days she can recall in her life\u2019s experience.<\/p>\n But as one of the best minds in risk assessment,\u00a0Nassim Taleb, notes, you can\u2019t prepare for the worst-case scenario based on past events, because the worst-case scenario hasn\u2019t happened yet.<\/p>\n At about the same time, I was chatting with friends who are gun owners and they mentioned the long\u00a0lines at gun shops. People were buying out all of the guns and ammo. But instead of my typical reaction of \u201cguns are bad and those people are crazy,\u201d my mind started wondering about all of the tail risk possibilities during this event.<\/p>\n What happens when food supply chains fail? What if my area becomes unsafe? Do I need to learn how to hunt? With what? Will civil unrest break out?<\/p>\n People will do anything they can to ensure the survival of themselves and their families. Our preparedness models are based on past assumptions of stability and civil obedience. But we\u2019re in an uncharted territory.<\/p>\n The question I asked myself: What do I need to do to feel safe and protect my family?<\/p>\n I called my friend, who advised me that for personal protection, I should get a handgun. The next day, I walked into a store I never thought I\u2019d set foot in. The line was long. I patiently waited while periodically watching the Fox News station on TV.<\/p>\n The store employees were all armed \u2014 very stern, but also very nice. I\u2019ve never felt as safe around so many firearms. That\u2019s when I filled out the background check form and I bought my first gun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" They used to say an anti-gun liberal was merely a conservative who hadn’t been mugged yet. Now it seems to be one who hadn’t had the cluebat of being their own First Responder upside their head. I\u2019m One of Those Anti-Gun People Who Just Bought His First Firearm Ilya from Michigan writes . . . … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,29,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-medicine","category-safety","category-self-defense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47678,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47677\/revisions\/47678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}My views before<\/h3>\n
How my views have changed<\/h3>\n