For the longest time, I didn’t say anything about my views on gun control publicly. I dislike prolonged Facebook arguments where people seem to be speaking past each other. But, meh, you only have one life to live, and I don’t want to keep my mouth shut for all of it.

So here goes: dear people who say “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”, do you really think that someone could do just as much damage with a knife/axe/sword/crossbow or your other weapon of choice? If you yourself had to face an attacker, would you rather have it be someone with a knife/axe/sword/crossbow or a gun? No one is saying that ONLY guns kill people, but they sure as hell make it a lot easier. Also, maybe restaurants shouldn’t give people forks and knives? After all, forks and knives don’t eat the food, people eat the food.

And people who say “limiting gun access would only hurt law-abiding citizens; the criminals will get their guns somewhere else”, I hope you support full legalization of all drugs and free access to prescription drugs, including opiate painkillers. Because in your world, if it’s just as easy for a criminal to get an illegal gun as a legal one, the same logic should apply to drugs, right? But I suspect most who are so vehemently against any additional restrictions on guns don’t have the same view about drugs.

I’m not saying we should ban guns. In fact, I don’t know what the optimal gun policy looks like, but there are plenty of experts out there who have some good ideas. But what I’m sure about is that there is definitely a way to reduce gun violence through more gun control and saying there isn’t is either dishonest or stupid or both (ok, the other alternative is that you’re a nihilist). Resisting more gun control at all costs is simply irresponsible. That is all.