I’m tired of seeing people vilify those of us who don’t see assault weapons as necessary for modern home defense. There seems to be a bumper crop of ignorant pictures that are clearly intended to get a rise out of those of us who don’t agree that M16s are appropriate playground attire. Enough is enough. Having a national conversation about gun control isn’t the end of the US as we know it. It’s a natural progression of societal change.

If you are one of those people who loves to post “witty” pictures with some idiotic “you’ll never take my guns" slogan, take just a brief moment before you post or re-share one of those images. Ask yourself a couple of questions:

"Is this going to change someone’s mind about this topic?"
"Am I willing to have a debate on this topic, should someone post a rebuttal?"

If the answer to either of these is “No”, then just don’t post. If you’re so frightened about the notion of discussion, then maybe it’s time to let people who are willing to apply logic and reason to the issue do so. Gun control isn’t about making the world perfectly safe all the time. It’s about making more people safe more of the time.

There isn’t a perfect solution, but that shouldn’t stop us from trying to find better measures to protect our citizens from weapons that are built with the intended result of killing on the battlefield. An assault rifle isn’t going to defend anyone against a predator drone anyway, so maybe it’s worth finding a better argument than “because the Second Amendment says so”.

Addendum: I’d kill for some advanced feed settings for Facebook that allow me to filter out photo links with certain words.