I just watched “30 Days: Gun Nation“, a show on the FX channel hosted by the Super Size Me guy. In this episode, Pia, a pro-gun control woman from the pro-gun control state of Massachusetts, chose to live for 30 days in Leesburg, Ohio with Ken, an ex-Marine, and his son. Early in the show, before Pia leaves for Ohio, she has dinner with her family, and shares a few redneck jokes, perhaps reflecting her perception of a typical gun owner.

Pia’s terror of guns appeared very real in a later scene, and I felt terrible for her. She broke down crying after the first shot. The sound of gunfire reminded her of the savage attack by an armed schizophrenic that left her friend dead. Still, while I empathize with her pain, it’s the way her mind, and the mind of other anti-___ (you fill in the blank), works that frightens me. Their reasoning appears to go something like this:

I’m afraid of this thing. I don’t understand this thing. I don’t like this thing. Therefore, based on my feelings and my limited, narrow experiences, I feel it would be best for the world to immediately accept my position and do it my way. Of course, I feel there are exceptions, but those exceptions should only be those that I feel are absolutely necessary.

Wow! That thought is loaded with feelings! Surveys, science, mathematics, history, engineering, and other structured forms of thought need not apply to them. These feelings were echoed by two other women on the show who lost loved ones to criminals. They all seemed like nice people, but they shared common feelings, which must be correct, so those feelings can be used to make global decisions. Right? Why does this feel to me like the same kind of thinking used by religious extremists?

So why are nice people afraid of nice people with guns?

In my experience, having been raised in a large urban area ripe with fear; narrow experiences, insecurity, and vulnerability seem to dominate the fear of guns.

Biased media fuels fear by only broadcasting stories where guns are used to harm people. This can be an incessant experience in cities like Chicago, or countries like Puerto Rico, where violence appears to be the local sport, second only to baseball. Growing up in Chicago, I can remember countless horrific stories where guns and knives were used to control or destroy people, but I can’t remember a single one where a gun was used for defense. That doesn’t mean guns weren’t used for protection or sport. It just means I didn’t hear about it. The media fuels fear because fear drives viewers back for more commercials. Urbanites, in their self-imposed confinement, love to hear about how multiple women were restrained and killed by a madman with a gun, or how a young couple out for a walk one evening along the shores of Lake Michigan was forced to have sex in front of a pervert. Who can forget the hype whipped up around OJ? What about John Wayne Gacy or Ward Weaver?

Our large cities are like sheltered bubbles, so developing broad perspectives within the bubble is about as difficult as seeing the horizon. One needs to deviate from standard media outlets to discover how often guns are truly used to prevent harm, in most cases without firing a single shot. Of course, those would be the stories and accounts that are reported. Many are not. I used to carry an illegal knife in Chicago. Do you think it would have been wise for me to tell the media if I had used it to deter crime? Massad Ayoob has similar accounts in his book, “In the Gravest Extreme”.

I used to be a liberal Democrat. I used to wish that all cars were electric. I used to ride my bike to work. I used to do a lot of things. Many years ago, I stopped my subscription to the Oregonian. I stopped watching commercial television. A few years after that I stopped listening to commercial radio. Finally, I severed my cable. I get my news from Google, NPR, the NRA-ILA (for balance), podcasts produced by fellow citizens, and by searching the web. I get music recommendations from friends who are experts at picking awesome music that I enjoy, and I occasionally “watch TV” on Hulu, or use my EyeTV to record digital off the air. In both cases, my computer systems will scrub commercials from the content before I view it. Today I see things in shades of gray. I’m angry at my brainwashing by local leaders and media and angrier still that it is still happening today to countless, like it happened to me so many years ago.

I meet so many people who are insecure. Insecurity in the city seems about as common as traffic jams. Can you guess what happens when an insecure person is controlled by a criminal with a gun? That gets you more insecurity, more fear, and that fear eventually turns to anger towards the thing that controls their fear. In a city like Chicago, where one gets all their information from a few sources that hype violence, one is weak and doubt their ability to defend themselves, one hears distorted stories from family and neighbors who have further distorted those violent stories, one is unarmed because only criminals are allowed to have guns in Chicago, then obviously, the presence of a gun must mean something really bad is going down. See a gun? Run! I love guns, and I still feel uneasy when I see someone I don’t know with a gun.

You don’t even have to be in a dangerous situation to empathize with the danger. Mirror neurons have been shown to allow us to feel what others feel. It’s what makes us human. A single crime can have a devastating multiplicative effect. The fear is further intensified by vulnerability.

Gail Pepin, a nurse who used to live in Chicago, describes in one of her podcasts (54 minutes into this one) how she feels comfortable using public rest rooms along the interstate now that she’s armed, and highly skilled with that firearm, I might add. I too remember the fear of going around the back of the gas station under flickering fluorescent lighting and entering a dirty obscured concrete room, when I really, really, had to go, before I entered the world of guns. Hell, I was brainwashed with Gacy. I even knew a woman once who would pee on the shoulder of the road, blocking views with the doors of her truck, because she thought public rest rooms were too dangerous.

We feel vulnerable when we feel we can’t defend ourselves, and our narrow experiences tell our insecure minds the world is truly dangerous. In my nightly walks to the grocery store in Portland (I hate crowds), I often see people cross the street to avoid me. Other times, under full sunshine, I will pass women, some young and some elderly, on the street and I can feel their fear. Criminals and dogs have that sixth sense also, except that I don’t want to hurt anyone. I wish so badly that I could just stop them and say, “You don’t need to be afraid anymore!” Obviously, I just smile and walk away from the fearful as fast as I can. How bizarre that fearful anti-gun folks don’t consider learning how to use a firearm and carrying one. I know the feeling of vulnerability practically evaporates after that.

I would now like to get back to Pia’s redneck jokes about the typical gun owner. Am I the typical gun owner?

I am a successful and respected engineer with a graduate degree from one of the top schools in our country. My father was a lawyer and a Democrat. I was born and raised in a middle class neighborhood in North Chicago, not far from Wrigley Field.

I carry a gun with me almost everywhere I go, even when it may seem inconvenient. I believe Portland, Oregon, and the western cities I travel to outside of California, are very safe cities, probably much like Leesburg, Ohio, in part, because concealed carry is legal. I laughed when Pia met Ken and said “Why do you need a gun in such a beautiful place?” Do you really think I’m going to start a fight with someone who is armed? Do you think they are going to start a fight with me if I am armed? Ahhh! Peace!

I truly believe that my gun will never leave its holster in public because of this peace. I also feel confident that my gun will remain hidden because I believe the Nonviolent Communication techniques found in Marshall Rosenberg’s work are much more successful in resolving conflicts than a gunfight. Massad Ayoob teaches us to toss a little money at an approaching bad guy and hope that appeases him before we run away. Avoidance is far cheaper than a lawyer.

I feel confident that my legally concealed gun will never be drawn in public because I am afraid. I am afraid of losing my concealed carry license granted to me by the public. I am afraid of being arrested, having my gun taken away from me, losing my job, being taken away from my loved ones by the police, having to explain my story to a jury full of anti-gunners, and handing over my life savings to lawyers. I fear the system more than I fear criminals. In the end it is cheaper to walk on the other side of the street, or to empathize with the aggressor, as I’ve learned from men more powerful than my gun.

Fundamentally, however, I won’t use a gun unless it is absolutely necessary, because I value life, all of it, everywhere. I watched Dr. Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage” when I was in high school. It was one of the single most influential messages imparted on my developing mind. How can you watch that show with an open mind and not value the diversity of life around us? I stopped shooting rats in the Chicago River with my pellet gun after I watched that show. Even today, I don’t hunt, and I don’t put my targets on trees when I practice in the forest. All life is precious to me. Carl Sagan’s perspective further strengthened my core belief that no human being should ever coerce another to do something against their will. For me, it is heinous to do so.

Still, while my gun might never be drawn in public, it is repeatedly drawn under training, because I believe carrying a gun without training is irresponsible.

Do I fit the stereotype of a typical gun owner? Should I be feared? Should I be controlled? “So why the hell do you carry a gun in the first place?”, you might ask. “Why not leave it at home or at the range?”

I carry because it is my inalienable right. I carry because it is my way of silently defying those, like Pia and Senator Diane Feinstein, who wish to control me with their feelings. I carry because I believe that for civilization to exist peacefully, its population must retain the right to defend that which is precious to it. I will carry even when it is inconvenient for me to do so. I will take my gun to the airport whenever I can and reinforce the processes used by ticketing agents and the TSA to screen weapons so they don’t forget that we have this right. I carry because there is always that infinitesimally small chance that I might not be able to cross the street or empathize with a schizophrenic, just like the schizophrenic that took Pia’s friend’s life, a therapist, who, one might expect, would be skilled at empathy and nonviolent communication. Even Marshall Rosenberg states that while force must never be used to punish, force might sometimes be necessary to protect.

In the end Pia’s mind seemed to open slightly after a conversation with a typical American family. They were forced to defend themselves against a sociopath with body armor who fired upon them repeatedly but was repelled by return fire from the homeowner. I wondered at that moment of Pia’s enlightenment if she was thinking what could have happened if her friend was armed and trained to defend herself when she was attacked by the schizophrenic gunman?

Two lines from William Butler Yeats poem, “The Second Coming” seem appropriate here:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Recently, I learned of a medical student who watched decapitation videos posted online by evil religious extremists, to help him develop a detachment, so that he might be able to provide better care for his future patients. I was asked by a mutual friend, what I felt when I saw those videos. Was I squeamish? Not having seen these videos in a long time, I reluctantly decided to watch them again, to remind myself of my feelings.

Initially, I felt a cold, scientific detachment. In one video, I watched a broken body make loud, wheezing sounds as it tried instinctively to deliver oxygen to a partially connected brain. The respiratory and cardiovascular connections between brain and body were severed. The body fought to survive, but could not, with that kind of damage. The brain commanded the throat muscles and diaphragm to force air into the lungs, but the brain would not get that oxygen.

As an engineer, I saw a control system go open loop with a complete loss of feedback. Control systems don’t often work well in this mode.

As a civilized and respectful human being, I started to become angry. Very angry.

I intentionally didn’t name the videos out of respect for the families involved. For me, this isn’t about violent videos. This is about evil men, with guns and knives and broken minds that feel free to do what they want, where they want, and to whom they want, because they have guns and knives and broken minds.

I grew angry because the innocents were restrained and, no doubt, feeling a fear few of us will ever feel. I grew angry because there is nothing special about the guns and knives these monsters used to control the victims, in fact many can be purchased for a couple hundred dollars. My guns and knives are just as powerful, maybe more so. My constant training makes them even more dangerous. Why then were these innocent people so easily overtaken? Why were they unable to defend themselves?

I find it incredulous that there are more evil men than good men. It’s easier for me to believe that maybe the evil men trained to use their weapons and the innocents had not, assuming the innocents even had equal or more powerful weapons with which to defend themselves when they were captured. I recognize that even our highly skilled Marines are sometimes overpowered. Shit happens. Still, the man, whose broken body fought hard to survive while being beheaded, was lying in a field along with a dozen or more who also met his fate. I only saw one evil man with a rifle, maybe two, if you include the cameraman.

What if all those innocent men were armed and highly trained in the use of their weapons? Could they have repelled a half dozen evil men with rifles, knives, and broken minds before they were all forced to the ground and shot in the head?

I am so angry because there are leaders in my beloved country who want to take away my right to defend myself. While I believe it is sometimes necessary to fight evil with evil, many deluded liberal extremists want to address the problem of evil by delivering empty speeches with words like “We offer our prayers for the victims and families of this act of senseless violence.” How do hollow words empower us to prevent atrocities from occurring again? Shouldn’t our collective goal be to control evil so that we can pursue life, liberty, and happiness?

Even more useless, these same liberal extremists want to pass laws that will interfere with my right to defend myself, while doing nothing to control evil. Have you ever met an evil man that obeyed the law? Isn’t kidnapping, assault, rape, and decapitation already illegal in most civilized cultures?

I keep wondering how successful evil men would be if more good men, and women, around the world were armed and highly trained in the use of their firearms and the tactics required to make them effective. Evil doesn’t exist only in places with unpronounceable names by men with faces hidden in checkered scarves and black masks searching for victims to behead. Evil exists here at home as well.

Who is the more evil in this world — the religious extremist with the gun and large serrated knife or the selfish liberal extremist that disarms their entire community and leaves it vulnerable to the whims of the lawless? Whose mind is more broken?