What a shock.
Remember Heidi Yewman, the Brady Bunch activist who “bought a handgun and will carry it everywhere I go over the next 30 days”?
I have four rules: Carry it with me at all times, follow the laws of my state, only do what is minimally required for permits, licensing, purchasing and carrying, and finally be prepared to use it for protecting myself at home or in public.”
Well, her terrifying month with a gun is over, no doubt to the relief of everybody paying attention except Ms. Magazine, which doesn’t get to be all edgy and controversial very much anymore.
And I’m sure to nobody’s shock, the experience taught her nothing. She came out of the “experiment” with exactly the same prejudices and preconceptions she brought to it. She deliberately chose to do something dangerously irresponsible, but it’s everybody else’s fault that she was not physically restrained from doing so. She accepts no responsibility for it at all.
The guy at the store shouldn’t be allowed to let me buy the gun without mandatory training. The government shouldn’t have let me get a permit to carry a concealed weapon without mandatory training.
I was going to say that that’s the outlook of a child, but that would be unfair to children. It’s the outlook of a brat.
What’s more, whether she realizes it or not (and I doubt she does) she even recognizes that, sort of…
I thought the gun would make me feel more powerful, more confident, and less fearful. I was wrong. All I felt was fear. Physically taking the gun out of the safe and putting it in a holster on my hip literally reminded me that I was going out into a big bad scary unsafe world. There were days when I put the gun back in the safe and stayed home because it simply took too much energy to be scared. It was easier to be at home without the worry and responsibility of being “the good guy with the gun.”
No, Heidi. The gun can’t make you feel more powerful, less fearful. It’s only a tool, it can’t make you do anything. That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you. You take from the experience only what you brought to it, and in your case…well. Let’s just agree that you’re probably better off at home without the worry. Or, certainly, the responsibility.
“The guy at the [computer] store shouldn’t be allowed to let me buy the [computer] without mandatory training. The government shouldn’t have let me get a permit to carry a [computer] without mandatory training.”
After all, she might say something offensive online and hurt someone. First Amendment? That’s no where near as important as ensuring that irresponsible people don’t say hurtful things!
She would probably dismiss that as a false equivalence.
By her logic I suppose the butcher should not let me buy any beef without proof of a cooking class. I might poison myself or someoone else.
I really tried… but I couldn’t read more than a few paragraphs of her drivel. It would have been very different if she’d truly been interested in learning anything.
She’s far more than simply irresponsible and foolish, however. I submit to you all that she is simply a liar. I refuse to believe that such people can truly not understand this – or they would have died of something long ago. They just choose to ignore it in this case because it doesn’t fit their agenda for the rest of us.