I write the following because my friend and piping buddy, Stuart, got me thinking about my position regarding gun ownership rights.  (In your honor, Stuart, I began writing this while listening to the Old Blind Dogs and sipping a fine 15-year-old Glendronach…all the while surrounded by the six finest cats in all of Seabrook.  And stay tuned…there will be a part 2.)

In reply to my overly sardonic blog post about my latest rifle purchase and the Florida school murders, Stuart wrote:

“I’m more or less on the other side of this argument, but at least I know this unnecessary abomination is in safe hands.”

This may seem like an unremarkable thing to say, but I was struck by Stuart’s kindness and decency.  These are times when to be an unrepentant gun owner and NRA member is to face scorn and undeserved accusations almost daily.  We are regularly condemned as terrorists, Nazis, child-murderers, racists and other slurs, by people at the highest levels of politics, journalism, entertainment, and even public school students.

It is easy to shrug off a few such accusations – I understand the frustration and despair following tragedies such as the recent school murders in Florida and here in Texas.  But they sting.  Hear them often enough – and I and my NRA colleagues do hear them often – and all understanding and sympathy are worn down, to be replaced with resentment and defiance. To someone who despises the evils we are accused of, and who opposes them on deep principle, to be accused of such vile beliefs goes far beyond tolerable derision and unfairness.

So I am grateful for Stuart’s acknowledgement that my guns are “in safe hands;” he knows that I could never commit evil with or without them.  I don’t know how many gun owners and NRA members Stuart knows, but he knows one: me.  I am not an abstraction or a stereotype to Stuart; I am not a gun boogeyman.  He knows me; and knowing me, he knows that I am none of the things that I and other gun advocates are accused of being.  He may condemn the gun, but he does not condemn me for owning it.

So, a hearty ‘sláinte’ to you, Stu.  I only wish those with voices louder than yours were so reasonable.