You see, it is all a matter of perspective. It is all a matter of the story of what reality is. People want to have guns to defend themselves from danger, to defend their home from burglars, to defend their families from bandits.
Can you argue with that?
There are people who will attack others, there are people who will break into your house, robe you, hurt your children, rape your wife. Those people have guns. How will you defend yourself without one?
Can you argue with that?
In reality where people will hurt you, attack you suddenly and without warning, you must defend yourself. In reality that is beyond your power to control, to encompass, to comprehend, that is scary, filled with anger, aggression and pain, you must protect yourself.
How can you argue with that?
I do not argue with that.
But, you see, my reality is different.
My reality is the choice that I made to be born as a human girl. I remember making this choice.
My reality is no need to defend myself from death, no more than I would defend myself from birth, because death is a splendid adventure. Because I did not begin at birth and I will not end when my body dies. Because I chose the moment when I came into this world and I will choose when to leave it.
It is my choice, never a choice of another.
I do not have to defend myself against accidents — there are no accidents in my reality. In my reality I choose.
Is there pain, sickness, trauma? Yes, there is — when I forget. When I lose myself and forget who I am. When fear takes me over, when trauma overwhelms me then there is pain, then there is sickness and my life collapses as I have collapsed.
This does scare me. It is the only thing in my reality that scares me: forgetting myself. Losing myself. But that, also, is my choice.
A gun will not keep me safe from this fear. A gun will not keep the trauma at bay.
A gun will not keep me safe from my choices.