Not so BANGarang

First, a phone conversation with my mother.

Mom: So have you gotten to know him? He’s liberal and all?

Me: I haven’t talked to him about politics, mom.

Mom: Ok, well keep talking to him. Find out more about him.

Me: Well wait, so what’s next?

Mom: I do want to get your horoscopes checked.

Mom: Why don’t you try to talk on Skype??

Me: I don’t know, ‘cause, I don’t know.

Mom: Talk on phone, just talk on the phone – why haven’t you talked on the phone?

Me: I don’t know.

…Because I have a crippling phone anxiety?

Mom: Well, judge for yourself, see how you like him, see if your viewpoints match. Of course, he’s a year younger than you – it doesn’t seem to matter to him, and its fine for us, I mean, we don’t care. Just try to communicate a bit more. … Is he trying to contact you?

Me: Yeah

Mom: No, I mean is he initiating?

Me: Yes, yes. He is.

Mom: Ok, well in the meantime I’ll talk to some more guys and you get this together. Follow up and keep me in the loop. The moment you feel that you’re comfortable enough and you want to move further, we’ll talk to the parents.

My heart: OH GOD OH GOD WHAT OH GOD.

So, I did it. And I regret it entirely. I asked suitor his thoughts on Gun Control. Mayday. Mistake.

ABORT.

Now, I realize there are people who will disagree with my thoughts on the subject of Gun Control. That’s not really what this is about. What struck me most in the following conversation was that Suitor was either not following my argument, or just wasn’t willing to respond to it in a way that made sense. I am a big fan of debate. I don’t mind if you disagree with me, but let’s have an interesting conversation about it, yeah? This is the conversation we had, the only edits are spelling / grammar mistake and formatting, and I’ve added in words I think were left out in brackets.

Me: So when you saw Batman, was the theater being extra strict or anything – I just read that there was a brawl at some other showing of Batman yesterday

Him: No, this is —– after all. Anything goes here…

Me: Yeah, I think NY might have done a few things at the late night showing, but everything is pretty normal. Which is strange. Roger Ebert wrote a great piece about the shooting in the NY Times this week

Him: oh ok, what did he say?

Me: much how we should use this moment to talk about gun control but we can’t because people are so crazy married to the idea that to talk about gun control is to support government oppression

Him: What are your thoughts on gun control?

Me: I think our gun control laws are ridiculous. They should be way stricter. What about you?

Him: You know a couple months ago I wouldn’t have cared one way or the other RE: the topic. But after having been trained in how to handle a gun etc. I think it’s a double edged sword. I personally think everyone should have the right/means to defend themselves, which unfortunately includes the use of firearms. Now the problem you [get] into is you end up with lunatics like Holmes who use that right for a nefarious purpose. But now should you penalize everyone for the stupidity of one? That’s the 100 million [dollar] question. I personally think no. But then again I’m sure the families of those who died would say yes.

Me: I’m not saying people shouldn’t be allowed to have guns, but I do think that our rules are ridiculously lax. He bought military grade assault weapons. No civilian should have access to that type of weaponry.

Him: And that’s where I disagree. I think everyone should have access to it, otherwise it puts those who do have access to it at an advantage.

Me: The only people who should have access to it are trained professionals.

Him: Just because they’re trained doesn’t mean they’re not going to go crazy and start shooting people…in fact I’d be more worried of a guy who does have training because he’s going to be way more accurate than an untrained guy… not to mention cause more devastation

Me: If you look at the statistics of violent / gun crime, I think you’ll find more often than not that it’s a civilian [who’s] committed the crime.

Him: I dunno. Not to be cynical but it just could be because military crimes are not published…

Me: That’s true. [I don’t think it’s necessarily true, but I was already feeling so thrown by this whole conversation, I didn’t really know what to say.] But even compared w/ statistics in other countries with stricter gun control our violent crime is so much higher. People don’t need machine guns in their homes.

Him: hmm ok I’m not aware of the statistics in other countries so I can’t comment and I can’t speak for society at large but for me I’d be against something that restricted my ability to arm myself.

Me: I just think there has to be some sort of control of what people have access to if it gives them to ability to harm another person. Stricter background checks and definitely a restriction on online sales. Stuff like that.

Him: You know that sounds fine in theory however it’s not going to stop something like what happened.

Me: It’d stop him from having easy access to a weapon that could kill as many people as quickly as it did. He’d have to work harder for it. There was another point made, that if he had had a Muslim name, he would have been picked up in 24 hours after purchasing all of that weaponry.  It’s just arbitrary. [I wasn’t trying to be funny, here. For the record.]

Him: hahaha probably. Exactly. I honestly don’t think stricter gun control would have prevented what happened. [I don’t understand how this needs an ‘Exactly’, I was disagreeing with you!]

I’m not irritated that he disagreed with me (though his views are definitely going in the CON column), I’m irritated that it wasn’t the type of debate I’m used to having. For not having an informed understanding of the situation, and based solely on his learning how to use a gun, he’s got a pretty strong opinion that everyone should have access to military grade weapons. And that is also going in the CON column.

I may be being too harsh here, and my brother (though on my side) played devil’s advocate and gave context to some of his views. But that’s not for someone else to do. Suitor should do it!

P.S. Looking at the gun tag on Tumblr to find an appropriate gif was a huge mistake and I am now creeped out by everyone. Everyone is a giant gun-loving creep.