Elbows loose, find your target, breath out, fire.

I learned how to shoot at the age of 4 on a .22 caliber bolt action rifle. A family affair, we would regularly all hike out to the shooting range and spend a day in perfect, ballistic harmony. The hum of dampened chatter through ear muffs, the high pitched shattering of a clay pigeon, and the heat of a summer day are the memories from my childhood. Guns had the power to bring my family together.

With all the internet rage over hunting, gun violence, and Cecil the lion, it becomes easy to criticize under the guise of a social conscious. Online, people are all too comfortable with their ability to reach out and eviscerate ideas and actions they don’t understand. They judge and condemn another person, before accessing the situation. In an increasingly public world, the masses are taking their opinions to a whole new level, ignoring, threatening, and attacking people who don’t see the world in the same way. These judgemental crusaders lay claim to their first amendment rights, valuing it higher than their humanity.

Growing up in an armed household, my siblings and I learned respect for guns and the people that wield them. My dad used to preach, “If you see a gun, leave it alone, and come get me.” He regularly tested our resolve, leaving empty guns all over the house, safety locked, watching what we’d do. A cold, metal cylinder, encased in shiny carved wood sitting on the dining room table, became commonplace, and I would walk right by.

The world has been made uncomfortable by guns. We do not want them on our dining room table, as we are too afraid someone will pick one up. I reject that idea. America, like my former self, needs to acknowledge guns, learn about them, and accept that they are a way of life for some. In a country where one in three Americans owns a legal gun, wouldn’t it be more reasonable to attempt to educate yourself, rather than attempt to belittle all gun users, and ask for their removal?

A younger me didn’t enjoy hunting, understand why some people got agitated that I was a member of the NRA or fear a gun. I ran around, with the conviction that firearms couldn’t hurt me because I knew how they worked. I was a tiny gun person, unaware of the stigma this title would one day carry. Now, not as naive, I know I can be pierced by bullets, but do not allow them to change my opinions of people. Someone who violates human rights, laws, or even threatens to do so should not be allowed to own a firearm. But if a person is licensed, educated, and cares about other human being personal safety I do not mind them owning a gun. All I truly care about is my personal choice to enjoy summer days with my family and the cold metal that brought us together, hoping that my kids get to experience the same if they choose to.