Dear Gun Owner, I Don't Want You to Defend Me

Getty/Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles

It's time to be blunt.

I don't want you to defend me. Yes, you. You, the good guy with a gun.

I don't want you to defend me. I've tried not to say this, but you won't listen any other way, so let me spell it out in simple words.

You are just another thug.

You are just another angry man with a gun, getting ready to kill another human being.

Don't you understand?

I don't want to die. I don't want to be robbed or sexually assaulted or battered. But you are a large part of the reason that I have to be afraid of armed assault.

Without you, and your gun lobby, it wouldn't be so easy to get a gun that criminals can buy them on every street corner.

Without you, and your NRA, no one would be able to buy 10,000 rounds of ammunition with no fuss, no muss, and no waiting. Without you, no one would be able to buy an AR 15 which shoots 700 rounds per minute and can kill an entire classroom of children before the teacher has time to finish reading "One Fish, Two Fish."

Without you, my world would be a safer place.

You are not the strong silent hero. You are not my hero at all, even if you "save" my property, or my life.

You are just another murderous thug.

When the police arrive at my location, their responses will be slowed as they try to figure out who is the shooter and who is the "good guy with a gun."

If there are several of you "good guys," you all have to decide if any one of you is dangerous. Who knows, maybe you will shoot it out. Statistically, you will decide that it's the black guy who is dangerous anyway, even if he is yet another good guy with a gun and the actual shooter is the white guy climbing over the wall back there.

Maybe it's not a lurking criminal you are trying to save me from. Some of you have told me that you must be armed as a militia, to defend me against anything from my own government to imaginary hordes of ravening immigrants all wanting to invade Hartland, Wisconsin, or Blanchester, Ohio, or Middle of Nowhere, Texas.

Let me give you a tip.

You are not a soldier. This is not 1776 or even 1946.

The US military doesn't need you to help them. The US military doesn't want you to help them. You are the tactical advantage equivalent of having Paul Blart, mall cop, on your side.

And fighting the US military? Standing up against them in revolt?

With their GPS guidance and drones, you wouldn't even see the US Military coming. You have an AR 15 and you've shot it a time or even twenty. They have Apache helicopters, tanks, and missile launchers. You work as an accountant. They live this shit.

The only reason tiny militias win anything, right now, is that the US Government doesn't want to murder their own citizens, if they can help it, mainly because its bad for publicity. In an open rebellion situation, you, my confused friend, are going to be a vaguely humanoid grease spot, possibly accompanied by a flattened former AR 15.

And the immigrants? Actually, I like most of them better than I like you.

They aren't waving guns in my vicinity, and most of them just want a job.

Americans are dying in classrooms and in movie theaters. At festivals, and at malls, in restaurants, and churches, and in the streets.

They are dying because of you.

They are dying because of your guns and your irresponsible ownership.

And I don't want you in my country anymore.


Fight for responsible gun ownership, today. Fight for licensing and registration. Fight to get assault rifles back off the streets. Fight for waiting periods and mental health checks.

Change the world, before there are too many more little faces on little crosses propped up outside of big and little schools.

As Jason Shelton writes, "We want our children back, there are too many gone too soon."

-Rev. Amy