I registered at GAO/AN, rare for me, out of a sense of relief to find this corner of AN.

The polarization that assumes that RKBA people cannot be liberals/lefty/radicals/greens/whatever, cannot be atheists, cannot be (fill in the blank) frustrates me. So does the kind that assumes that if you own, use, or like guns, you must be (fill in the other blanks).

My RKBA sympathies come out of my being put in many categories that equate to victim in the eyes of both liberals and conservatives.

You know the thing about how, gun control is the idea that a woman lying strangled in the alley is morally superior to one explaining to the police how her attacker got that fatal wound to the chest. I get a lot of that sort of "victim = superior" energy among pacifist-aggressive liberals in my part of the world. It wearies me as much as the mean conservative RKBA people who run around claiming the US was founded as a Christian nation by Godbots, and so on. So being a gun-owning atheist in my area puts one at odds with both major camps.

Also I get weary of how "right" and "left" alike hang so much on guns that has nothing to do with guns. In my view, the 2A is pretty simple. But it's used so often by people trying to leverage/manipulate their own and others' political power at various levels.

I don't view my firearms as identity badges, just tools. It's a bit like when someone has a same-sex lover, suddenly they're shoved into a category that's supposed to cover their whole life forever (homosexual/gay/queer). This is pandemic in our culture--the rush to stick people in categories because of particular beliefs, practices, appearances, or whatever. Dynamiting shortcuts through/past each other. Refusing each other the journeys of discovery, and all the courage and character building that entails.

All in all my biggest concern is for the Constitution. If RKBA people don't pull together, regardless of beliefs, the gun-grabbers may have their way with the Bill of Rights/Constitution.

Just a few not very well framed thoughts, but I wanted to make some kind of contribution. Thanks for reading this, and I hope some will reply.

Metsa