I have a confession to make: I have become an all-American semi-automatic owning secret gun lover. Fifteen years ago I was giving money to anti-gun groups, and now I am a gun owner with a membership to the local firing range.The rest of the story indicates that it wasn't so much the interest in video games as the suprisingly positive experience she had at the range.
How did this happen? You know what I'm about to say, but before you start throwing rocks at my head, please hear me out.
The video games made me do it.
I loved it almost instantly. It wasn't the feeling of power or the knowledge that I was using a deadly weapon that I liked. It was the concentration and precision – the stillness it took to line up the sights, relax, and squeeze the trigger. It was much more zen and stress-relieving than I ever expected it to be. Guns demand your attention. You cannot think about anything else when you hold one in your hand. I loved the way my mind would go completely quiet while shooting. Also, the gun went boom and blew a hole in something, and that was satisfying, in the same way popping bubble wrap is.Her experience definitely seems to support that silly pro-gun suggestion that all you have to do is take one of us to the range and we'd be convinced. One problem I see is that most of the gun control folks I know have already been to the range.
But, what do you think? Please leave a comment.
