Oh boy, this opens the can of worms for real.
Like I mentioned in my post on Obama's threat to use executive action to create stricter gun restrictions, I don't really know where I stand on the issue of gun control.
That's not quite true; I know exactly where I stand: I'm conflicted, standing right smack in the middle.
I'll start from the beginning, which is that I used to be completely against guns; I thought that if we just got rid of them all there would be no problem. No guns, no means to kill, am I right? People brought up the points of self protection and for sport, but I couldn't see past the fact that a gun would be anything more than a tool of destruction and death.
And then I heard Dan Carlin's take on the gun control, which sent my left leaning ideals reeling towards the center. He spoke at length about the different values that a gun might bring in a case of self protection. We might be able to quantify the number of cases in which a gun was actually used in a case of self defense, but we will never be able to quantify the number of people for which the gun by their bedside or under the pillow is the only reason they can sleep at night. I couldn't fathom the idea that, for those who grow up seeing a gun everyday, who go hunting on weekends and practice their aim at the firing range, the gun was simply a part of their lifestyle.
If this post stirs some rational debate, great. My point, however, was to provide a small window into my political socialization regarding a topic: my viewpoint was cultivated on a diet of MSNBC liberal media, fertilized by the liberal soil of the west coast in California, and trimmed by this generation's social media.
Feel free to analyze; that's why I put this up in the first place.
Sources:
Carlin, Dan. "Overdue Analysis." Audio blog post. Dan Carlin. Orator LLC, 20 Aug. 2014. Web. 4 Jan. 2016.
Koppel, Ted. Lights Out: A Cyberattack, a Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath. New York City: Crown, 2015. Print.
https://storify.com/vmbarr89/gun-control-who-does-it-protect
http://www.usnews.com/cartoons/gun-control-and-gun-rights-cartoons
My Political Socialization
