"Confessions of a Liberal Gun Owner"

I read today's NY Times op-ed "Confessions of a Liberal Gun Owner" with keen interest this morning. The author, Justin Cronin, sounded so reasonable and self-disclosing. How could one not find his point of view persuasive? Well, I, for one, did not, and here's why. For all his willingness to admit that he has often been seduced by romantic, Starsky and Hutch-infused perspectives on guns and firearms that, as he says later in the piece, "are completely wrong," it was his occasional and rather matter of fact conclusions that his guns are ultimately meant to protect himself that made me doubt this guy.

Despite the fact that he knows it's safer for everyone when a household is without a gun, he clings to the idea that his guns may be necessary someday "to protect his family." He asserts he is his family's "last line of defense," whatever that means, and that he has therefore resolved to meet his responsibility to take care of his family by making sure he is well armed. But there is virtually no evidence that guns protect people in this way. For one thing, the need to actually use a gun, to physically protect oneself with a firearm is rare, and the likelihood that you will be lucky enough to have access to a gun in a time of crisis is pretty remote as well.

Near the end of the article, he takes pride in his daughter's prowess with a gun and notes that it is reasonable for her to develop her gun skills because, after all, one in five women is a victim of a sexual assault. But, again, real life doesn't work that way. You don't get to blow away the guy who is attacking you, because, well, you don't have your gun with you, or it's just out of reach, or it all just happened too suddenly. Virtually only in the movies do you get to blow the bad guy away. In the meantime, by carrying that gun, you may be endangering yourself and innocent others around you, and the chance that you will do harm to people who have no intention of hurting you (and Cronin knows this) is much, much higher than actually getting to kill an aggressor.

All of this bothers me as much as it does because there is so much at stake and because such thinking is so shoddy and so contaminated by our distorted ideas about aspiring to become the brave and noble savior. It's a fantasy, folks, and it would be quite funny, if it weren't so dangerous and pathetic.