Essay on the Most Emotional Amendment

The important premise to realize is that people don't want to be safe, they want to feel safe.

Some people feel safer when nobody has a gun.

Some people feel safer when everybody has a gun.

But nobody really cares which scenario is truly safer. There are plenty of examples to support each position, plenty of statistics and social psychology to defend each argument. We are exceedingly capable of ignoring the disagreeable truth and hearing only what we like to hear.

Because this is not a debate about safety, this is a debate about emotions. Specifically, @fear and @attachment, and also control.

And when we dispose of logic and base our discussion entirely on emotion, it is no longer even a debate. It is children, fighting over toys. It is dogs, fighting over bones.

Are we better than that? This post is not an invitation to bicker over your position on gun control. This post is an invitation to be better than your position on gun control.