I received emails, texts and IMs from friends and coworkers and was met with a lot of negativity for my initial reply that I feel we have a problem with guns in this country. I decided to write a blanket statement to clarify my thoughts in a peaceful and succinct manner in subsequent replies to them. It was met with positivity so I figured that people on this site that I frequent but don't contribute to may benefit if they too were having a problem expressing themselves. The Vegas reddits are a place I enjoy visiting to find out about the best my city has to offer and I felt it was time to express myself.

Unfortunately, American gun culture is a very polarizing topic and many from both sides simply refuse to hear the opposing opinion. I grew up around guns in the family and have chosen to take a different path so I hope you and anyone else reading can appreciate and respect that.

My message was written not to be incindeary or start trouble, rather to express that everyone is normal and feels capable of being responsible around firearms until that moment when they are not. I had a loved one years ago who was grieving a tragic cancer related death in the family and at the suggestion of attending officers and emt I had to sneak in to the bedroom and secure a firearm that was admittedly secured and responsibly held in the household for years. We all knew that people change and no matter how conscious we are, humans don't have full time control of their minds for their entire lives, be it due to a tragedy, chemical imbalance physical trauma or other factor. Anyone who thinks they are immune haven't seen a loved one go through alzheimers or ptsd. There are no checks and balances in place in our gun culture that safeguard us from anything, let alone this, and the only solution I see is to talk about it and broach the subject of changing the way many react to gun rights. There is an almost involuntary reaction by many to defend the status quo without any further discourse and I think that's irresponsible. I don't claim to know what the ultimate solution is but I know it's not to close up and treat the topic as off limits. Much like religion, many discussions on this topic are immediately derailed with negativity fear and paranoia over the perceived infringement on rights instead of intellectual debate many now seek.

I get that everyone is scared that the invisible line of who is responsible enough to own a gun will be drawn right above their place in society and they'll be trapped with only the illegally obtained guns and wackos under that glass ceiling, unable to defend themselves. I'm simply arguing that every human is technically biologically capable of crossing that imaginary line in to psychosis so maybe we should consider putting some controls on devices that are very capable of and solely designed to (target shooting aside) do physical harm to living creatures.

I've already spent way more time than I'd ever imagined explaining myself to an internet stranger but I truly hope that regardless of your opinion you respect mine and not worry about whether or not I'm real, especially when my initial message was one of consciousness and tolerance for the fact that biologically speaking nobody is immune to dementia. Until somebody invents a way to edit violence out of the human brain we've got to get a handle on things that are designed to kill in our society.