Posted on 06/15/2024 5:31:16 AM PDT by Twotone
This winter I turned on the light on the nightstand and stared at the 45-70 rifle propped up in the corner of my bedroom. After thinking for a moment, I got up and put it in the living room. This was the first time I had a gun under my own roof, and I couldn’t get to sleep knowing it was there. I’ve been prone to depression all my life, and it just seemed to be tempting fate. Mind, I’m not suicidal, but I gave myself one night to be a big baby about it.
The gun is on loan from my handyman and friend, Paul. “We’re gonna redneck you right up,” he'd grinned months earlier, while we we worked together to slop out and rebuild the flood-ravaged downstairs of my rental property, on a dirt road in rural Vermont.
The summer 2023 deluge couldn't have come at a worse time. I had bought the house in foreclosure years ago, originally to give family members an affordable place to stay. Now I was about to move in. I was in the process of selling my primary residence near Burlington, and I had to make this place habitable fast. Burlington blight
Paul is right about needing to redneck me up. I’ve been a city boy my whole life, but the deranged progressive politics of urban New England drove me out. It started with the blue-haired set; an influx of lumbering 6'5" men tottering around in heels and eye shadow soon followed.
Then there was the crime, a relative novelty in our land of quaint bed-and-breakfasts and fall foliage tours. Burlington transformed into a miniature version of San Francisco, complete with boarded-up businesses shuttered by the lockdowns and covered in graffiti, human feces on the sidewalks, and hypodermic needles littering what used to be manicured lawns in nice neighborhoods.
When my curbside trash bins got “tagged” for the first time after living in the city for 15 years, that was the final straw. Now I’m learning about life with septic systems, well pumps, propane heating, backyard trash burning, and bears. Having a gun and knowing how to use it is just good sense when you live out here. In fact, I'd say it's good sense no matter where you live. Confessions of a former gun-grabber
This is a recent development. See, I’m a former leftist. I drank the Kool-Aid of progressivism (and served a lot of it too) from the time I was a teenager. There wasn’t a welfare program I didn’t want expanded nor an “oppressed minority” I didn’t think needed special support from the state. My views were the typical politics of resentment. Like millions of other leftists, my orientation to the world was simple: “The government should take care of that for me."
Of course I wanted gun control. Everyone knows that guns kill people, right? It sounds stupid to me now, but as someone who spent his life exclusively around other leftists until the age of 41, I believed a lot of very stupid things for a very long time.
Most leftists won’t even listen to a conservative point of view. Or more accurately, perhaps, they can't. Confrontation with anything they perceive as “right-wing” provokes an almost involuntary emotional reaction, a kind of contamination-disgust reflex. I know it well because I often reacted the same way.
Until I didn't. A crisis that unmasked the mental and moral illness in my family was the first event that started to open my eyes to the real world. What I’d been taught at home — men are inherently dangerous and toxic, the government should regulate and tax everything so that single mothers can get bigger benefits checks — had disturbed my moral compass until middle age. Cured by the CDC
And then came COVID. I had already begun to let go of my leftist beliefs and turn to the right, but nothing pushed me farther or faster than watching the government trample the constitutional rights of citizens. It was unbelievable how many people obeyed extra-legal orders to stay home, wear masks, take jabs, and tell on their families and neighbors who didn’t obey Big Sister (it’s definitely “sister” in the 21st century).
The extraordinary nationalization of rental properties by the Centers for Disease Control infuriated me. As a landlord, I could not believe that some “health”-based federal agency thought it had the right to tell my tenants they could just stop paying rent and that I had to suck it up. I count this turn of events as a blessing, as it cured me of the remnants of my allegiance to, well, communist views. Because that’s what leftism is today.
Back to guns. I can’t explain why I believed what I did. Over the years, more sensible people patiently explained to me that criminals don’t obey gun control laws. They pointed out that when you have bad guys with guns that good guys can’t get, you end up with bad guys in charge and good guys in coffins. This is so glaringly obvious that a 4-year-old could understand it, and yet I didn’t. Never underestimate the average leftist's capacity for self-delusion.
Actually, I can explain why I believed what I did and why millions of leftists believe the same. No actual thinking is taking place, only feeling. I had emotions about guns, but no thoughts. To be a leftist is to be ruled by fear, disgust, and the projection of one’s own negative motivations onto other people. Taking responsibility
I can’t live that way any more. Not after the real world slapped me in the face — and slapped some sense into me. Being a small business owner educated me about the plain thievery of our taxation system. Being excommunicated from my job, my friends, and my social circle over my refusal to take a dangerous vaccine — and worse, my persistence in talking about it loudly and publicly — taught me the difference between friends and “friends.”
Frankly, it was a small step to rethink guns after it became clear that the government recognized no natural or legal check on its actions. We’re all responsible for defending and protecting our lives, our property, and our families.
So this summer Paul is going to train me more on the rifle. I fired it a few times at a target in the back yard (an old microwave oven, and yes, the explosion was as satisfying as you think), but now it’s time to get proficient. I’ll learn how to operate, store, and carry guns safely and sensibly. If a bear or — God forbid — an intruder threatens my safety, I’m my own line of defense, as it should be.
After that first night of putting the rifle outside my bedroom, I put it right back. It’s not good coddling yourself; confronting reality is the cure for fear. Ever since, I’ve slept like a baby.
bkmk
The emotionality he refers to is probably the biggest issue. You broach an issue like the covid response with some people & get an almost hysterical response. They actually CAN’T think, because the emotion is too much in the way.
It is one of the worst aspects of leftism… Those who promote it are almost always never forced to live with the ramifications and consequences of leftism.
They often live in bubbles, protected bubbles, insulated inside that bubble from other opinions.
There is some thing about leftism That I find in particular is highly disturbing and perplexing.
I have struggled to understand leftists. It isn’t stupidity in many cases. It’s something else. I have vacillated between classifying it as a mental disorder, a weird manifestation of secular, religious fervor, or simply people who are so immature they never grow up.
But Thomas Sowell said (I have to paraphrase this) that the policies of leftism are abundant only because the people who promote them never have to experience them firsthand.
I believe that, but I also believe in PT Barnum observation that a sucker is born every minute.
And I also believe Thomas Sowell is correct In his observation of why government is so broken in this country today:
“When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.
But Thomas Sowell said (I have to paraphrase this) that the policies of leftism are abundant only because the people who promote them never have to experience them firsthand.
The response also is not a magic bullet. One thing one time won’t do it for most things. Don’t put down anyone doing a small thing for our cause.
The reference here is to justice. Swift justice and experiencing the results. I only touched the hot stove once as a child. But then I was also grabbed away from the stove, my wound soothed and taught what happened.
But may be the most important thing is us:
Why do we fight?
If I shake you awake in the middle of the night and ask why you fight, after you reach for your gun, what do you tell me?
Trump can answer that question. George Washington could. Can we?
A sucker is born every minute is false.
There are actually hundreds of suckers born every minute.
lol
Interesting comment. I personally sleep very soundly with my SIG M-18 on my night stand and my 120lb. Great Pyrenees with one eye open at all times as an early warning.
We’ll need guns for no matter who gets elected this Nov. We KNOW what the slimy side will do if they lose, and we had better figure out what we might want to be prepared for if the slimes “win”. (”Win” is in quotes because we know the ONLY way they’ll win.)
P.J. voted for Hillary.
Just saying.
L
That is disappointing, to say the least.
He was quite proud of it.
I was disappointed to find out what a phony he was.
L
Most people start with a .22, not a bear gun.
Well he is gone now. He wrote some fantastic stuff in his time which I enjoyed a great deal and that can never be taken away but I probably won’t be going back and reading anything else of his.
Inventory your guns! Find out which ones have a paper trail back to YOU! I wish I had kept all I bought before the 1968 Gun Control Law was enacted.
But I keep hearing from psychiatrists that it is the conservatives that are ruled by "disgust".
I think I figured it out.
You show a conservative a picture of a neighborhood covered in trash and graffiti, kids, who when asked if they can name a continent are unable to do so, or men dressed up like the most extreme caricatures of women and we feel disgust because these are things people should be disgusted by.
It is repulsive to not take care of your nest, the young should be educated and boys are not girls.
The liberals feel disgust at anyone having more money then they do, being able to protect themselves and having a clean environment to live in. They are especially disgusted by happy, educated children.
They will tell you that it is disgusting for you to have those things because not everyone has them.
But rather than trying to get everyone to have them, although they will tell you that is what they are for, they actively try to take those things away from the people who have them.
They regard humans with disgust. They should not be clean, happy, well-fed or safe. To them that is as strong a violation of the natural order as we feel seeing some hollow eyed kid picking through trash. Because they think that is the natural state of man.
But the tests do not pick up on that. Because they show pictures of things NORMAL people find disgusting. And liberals ain't normal.
Gun ownership, like foxes and rabbits, can be cyclical. Bad guys with guns give good guys incentive to have guns. Good guys with guns provide less incentive for bad guys to have guns. Bad guys without guns lessens incentive for good guys.
Same cycle can apply to conservatism/liberalism.
Well, the article does talk about training ... "So this summer Paul is going to train me more on the rifle. I fired it a few times at a target in the back yard (an old microwave oven, and yes, the explosion was as satisfying as you think), but now it’s time to get proficient. I’ll learn how to operate, store, and carry guns safely and sensibly."
At least he understands what he needs to do to become more proficient ...
I like the phrase: "mental and moral illness." Very apt. will use it in the future.
What does Josh mean when he says that his curbside bins were “tagged”. Pardon my ignorance.
What do you think about loaning a calibre 45-70 rifle to someone (liberal or not) with no training or experience?
Thanks
BrianD
Yes, that rifle just sat there sulking in a corner
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