What happens to you when you buy a gun?

June 20, 9:20 PMDenver Gun Rights ExaminerDan Bidstrup

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Many people think that when you buy a gun, it has an inherent spirit of evil and bellicosity that takes you over.  A chip grows on your shoulder, and you begin to look for affronts that you can settle with force.  Ultimately, you will succumb completely to the weapon's influence and become a mass murderer.  Nope. 

Last week I had a discussion with a business owner who recently bought his first firearm.  He bought a 9mm handgun. He and his 20 year old son have been going to a range and learning how to shoot.  He is considering applying for a concealed carry permit.  I asked him why, after 40 years of living, he was doing this.  He said that the direction of our current administration in Washington had made him afraid that guns would be outlawed or harder to obtain.  When I asked why that was a concern for him personally, he said that he thought it was important to be able to defend his home and family.

There is a growing conviction that while our police system in this country is among the best in the world, it can't help you at the moment a crime is being committed.  Indeed if there is a patrol car in the driveway, I doubt any criminal is dumb enough to try a home invasion there.  I like the observation of Examiner Daniel White who said the police are our avengers, not our protectors.  This husband and father had come to the crisis point where he decided to invest in his own defense rather than  choose a reliance on the police to keep him and his family safe.  He perceived that the window to make that choice was closing, and like many Americans since November 4th, he decided to buy a firearm and ammunition and chose self reliance.

What happens to you when you buy a gun?  My own experience and conversations with others have convinced me that buying a gun solidifies in your own mind the previously gauzy perception that the government can't do everything for you.  The most basic thing is your personal safety, the safety of your family and your home.  Buying a gun is your decision to rely on yourself.  If buying a gun has any influence, I think it is that you become "One of  Them".  You perhaps see more clearly that the gun is a tool like a stapler.  It has no spirit of its own.  You begin to see that gun owners are just regular folks, as you yourself are.  You know yourself pretty well.  You know that you would not trade your present life for years in jail in order to kill a person who cut you off in traffic, or cheated you on a basement remodel.  I am comfortable with the notion that anybody at random walking the streets with me might be legally carrying a gun.  I believe that, like me, they will do everything possible to avoid pulling their weapon or firing it. 

Owning and practicing with a gun starts you down a path of thinking that leads to more self determination. I think this is why many gun owners are more aware of the US Constitution than most folks are, and are more aware of the natural rights of man that informed that document.  That in turn leads to thoughts of an overbearing federal government that was not the vision of our founding fathers.  Gun owners see the states and local government being more responsive to their day to day needs as regular citizens and Washington becoming more and more responsive to Washington.  The state sovereignty movement and the guns "Made in Montana (and now Tennessee)" are indications of a populace growing impatient with a federal government that has overstepped its enumerated Constitutional powers.  I think gun owners are more sensitive to liberty, where it comes from and how and when it is threatened.  Buying a gun doesn't introduce an alien spirit into you. It's just an outward sign of an awakening mind. God Bless America.