The Critical Asshole: Listening to...

kiyoshimartinez:

Concerning that whole “bringing guns to protest President Obama” thing:

I’m a conservative. I’m what you’d consider “pro-gun.” I support concealed and open-carry rights. I support the right to assault weapon ownership.

BUT!…

Just because you should be allowed to do something and have the legal right to do it, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. In fact, for the purposes of protesting and changing people’s minds about Obama’s healthcare policies, you’re probably doing more harm than good.

All it takes is one person carrying a gun to a rally to ruin it for the rest of us level-minded people who want to have a honest dialogue about healthcare reform. It might be hard to believe, but you look like a radical and are scaring people.

Normal people, who are moderates that tend to decide elections, don’t like to be scared. They probably aren’t going to pay attention to any of the good points against Obama’s healthcare plan you might have to say when you’re distracting them with that gun of yours. In fact, they’ll probably mentally shut down and dismiss you immediately.

The wonderful thing about America is that we can have the opportunity to use freedom of speech to resolve our differences and express our opinions — thereby coming to resolutions — without ever having to need to resort to violence (or threats of violence). Why ratchet up the rhetoric and take this debate beyond debate and into what’s essentially warfare? There’s no need.

I might not like Obama’s policies, but I’m not going to bring a gun to a protest. You know why? Because implying you might support killing someone you disagree with — especially the President of the United States — is irrational, insane and shameful. This isn’t some third-world country where we solve our political differences with guns. It’s America, where we’re supposed to represent a civilized democratic society.

It’s debate club, not gun club. It’s the pen, not the sword.