Member-only story
A person working the counter at an all night liquor store that does a lot of “cash business” buys a handgun and keeps it with him at work. That makes perfect sense.
Another person owns dozens of guns, including several assault rifles, and obsesses over them and always wants more. This person insists that this is a right, and angrily threatens anyone who is coming to take his guns. He fears immigrants, people who look different from him, and anyone who has ideas different from his own.
He spends time with others who think and act and speak just like he does. He is dangerous and insane.
We actually spend time arguing with these people as if they had a point. We treat them as if obsessing over guns, wanting more guns, and fearing imaginary threats and angrily threatening others is acceptable and civilized behavior. We should treat these “arguments” with no respect whatsoever. We should treat them with the same stony silence that any dangerous nonsense deserves — for example, an election loser insisting that he was cheated while presenting no evidence whatsoever.
Answering the statements of people who are suffering from dangerous delusions is a waste of time, and kind of crazy in itself. Instead, we should be working to put things right, make the world safer, and strengthen our common humanity.
