Too Many Empty Chairs...

 Hi.

It's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that owning a gun is sooooo important to some people. 

Back in the day, when people needed guns to hunt, because that was the only way to procure meat, they were necessary, absolutely.

But, that was a loooonnng time ago. Yes, people still hunt, but precious few are doing it out of necessity. It's a hobby. 

No one really needs a gun. Not any more. They don't. If you want to own a gun, you should have to prove you need one. Really, actually, need one. And then, and only then, the gun you obtain should be specific to that need. 

In the 21st century, guns are a hobby. For hunting, for target shooting, to collect. A hobby. Like singing, dancing, knitting, playing an instrument, reading, participating in sports, collecting baseball cards, or coins, or playing video games. It carries no more importance than any of these.

Yet, this is the only hobby that is political. This is the only hobby that has lobbyists. This is the only hobby that is perceived as some sort of basic right instead of what it really is, a perception held only by those who participate in it. 

This is also the only hobby that has the potential to be lethal to humans.

If someone breaks into your house and steals your karaoke machine, it would be pretty much impossible to use that machine to kill people.  

I don't know of any hate crime carried out by the use of yarn.

I have never heard of one single person being volleyballed to death. 

No one has ever walked into a church, grocery store, or school and killed multiple people with baseball cards.

I have never seen or heard of "active dancer drills."

Kids have never been traumatized by a coin collection falling into the wrong hands. 

I know this sounds simplistic. I know people like to make it seem that this is some kind of horribly complicated social conundrum with multifaceted solutions. It just isn't. 

Guns, and everything that involves them, are hobbies. Period. 

Explain it to me, using real-world, actual logic, the reasoning behind this unreasonable attachment to something that has one, singular, purpose... to kill.

Make it make sense.

There are too many empty chairs, emptied by bullets, to protect a stinking hobby.

How many tiny graves will be enough?

How many dead teachers will be enough?

How many grieving spouses will be enough?

How many fatherless kids will be enough?

How many motherless kids will be enough?

Where is the line? 

Does it exist? 

Is there a limit? 

What is it? 

Will it only matter when it's one of your own?

Can you name one other hobby that creates this kind of terror, this kind of devastation?

I can't. 

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May you come to see that guns are a weapon, not a tool, not a plaything, death is the sole purpose of their existence.

May you see the only reason they are still a problem, still causing terror, is at your own insistence. 

May you see that it simply doesn't need to be this way.

May you put an end to the 'active shooter' drills, end the need for them, do it today.

May you find a way to let go of your deadly pacifier.

May you see the need goes far beyond your 'wants', it's so much higher. 

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