On Tuesday evening, I went on a date to Cabelas with my handsome, debonair (his words) British boyfriend (BBF) to try on pistols and pick out ammunition. Though he comes from a country where gun ownership is rare and highly regulated, he’s as enamored by guns as much as he is by fast cars and fighter jets, and he spouts off makes and models with dizzying excitement.

BBF asks me questions like Do you think I could get a gun as a non-citizen?

Yes, of course, with a properly approved application from the State, we discover online.

And Can you buy ammo ONLINE?

Of course, this is ‘Merica, I say.

And then I think about how I’m handling instability in our Country: The factions. The tariffs. The economic insecurity. The isolation from our global allies. The concern from Canadian friends that we’re going to invade them. The daily anxiety as our freedoms are eroding.

There’s this saying that goes something like: Airplane pilots are easygoing, while helicopter pilots are always expecting disaster. The stereotype acknowledges the effortless design stability of airplanes versus helicopters and the personality traits that are attracted to them. While I’m rated in both, I have far more time and ratings in helicopters, though I no longer fly anything. I mostly work at a desk these days, yet I do still fall into the camp of someone who prepares relentlessly for the worst. I don’t mean bunker-and-canned-goods prepared, though that no longer feels fanatical. But I do mean, I keep bear spray and a knife on my desk at my office just in case and face the entrance in a restaurant aware of the exits. I go into the wilderness prepared to spend the night if needed and when engaging in the far more dangerous activity of spending time with men, I carefully vet potential online dates. I take risks, safely.

With democracy crumbling and fascism rising like a bloating corpse, I see the need for personal protection. BBF and I wander through waves of Cabelas camouflage and Carharts to the well-lit glass counters displaying pistols with bright red safety locks in the same pumped-up glossy fashion as designer makeup in Sephora. The no-nonsense white man with a wide forehead and anti-gun control politics who works the counter pulls guns from the case and expertly explains to me the various safety mechanisms, stock lengths, calibers, and price points. I don’t feel comfortable with the Glock 43’s safety mechanism, I tell Cabela man, and he says that’s a sensible decision. Still feeling lost and overwhelmed, I tell him the Baretta 9mm, which I’d qualified on decades ago in the Army, was too large for my small hands. I struggled for accuracy with the trigger reach and haven’t shot anything in years. He listens carefully to my needs. I feel heard by this man. I’m starting to trust him. He makes recommendations. He shows me a weapon his wife prefers. Still, I feel awkward and overwhelmed with options, though we’ve narrowed it down to just a few sensible choices.

Then Cabela man tells me how he prefers a metal gun and I ask what he likes about it—is it just how it feels or is there something more?

I enjoy forcing men to talk about their feelings in awkward places and in awkward ways. He says he likes the weight of it in his hand. He likes the feel of the metal. And I sense without asking that he likes not just how the gun feels but how it makes him feel about himself. I understand, I say. He mentions his own time in the Service and I think about all the right-wing men I served with who initially saw me as a female leftist vegetarian and later saw me as a competent pilot and friend. Connecting on a human level in close proximity always broke down our differences into things that didn’t matter. We became people who were just trying to help other people and each other.

A customer standing nearby recommends going to a shooting range just north where you can try out a catalog of weapons to see what feels right before purchasing anything, and that suddenly seems like a most sensible follow-up date, which thrills BBF. The man behind the counter agrees that would be best as well and so it is decided.

While I hope we circumvent an internal war of our own making, I want to ensure I can make a break or stay put with confidence. And confidence with anything comes with repeated practice and an eventual rise in skill—something I’ve learned through much repeated failure and crying and trying over and over until I get better at things. I do already own guns. But, now is the time to find one I feel most comfortable using. With preliminary weapon research complete, we compliment the American strip mall gun shopping experience with endless salad and breadsticks flanked by pasta at the Olive Garden just across the car-speckled parking lot where we discuss the details of our work lives and the two remaining gun options:

Sig Sauer P365XST 9mm

Smith &Wesson M&P Shield EZ 9mm

Yes, readers, I’m open to your opinions and recommendations. Also, how much ammo is enough? One subscriber named Dennis says there is never enough. I probably don’t have the budget for endless ammo, but really, how much is enough?

Spring is here and Summer is close behind. I expect the violence and unrest to grow and a Trump-backed government may begin cracking down on its own citizens. We’re already seeing the slippery slope of first targeting legal residents. A green card holder activist, Mahmoud Khalil, who is married to an American citizen, is being detained and slated for deportation for his political activism, and whose free speech is protected by the Constitution, according to legal experts.

Foreign Policy in Focus, a group of “Scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the U.S. a more responsible global partner” in their information on How To Counter Fascism notes on their website:

If history, especially of the United States, is any indication, one must not preclude the possibility of violent civil war, and should that become a real threat, to take the appropriate steps to counter it. CIA analyst Barbara Walter is not crying wolf when she writes:

Where is the United States today? We are a factionalized anocracy [a degenerating democracy] that is quickly approaching the open insurgency stage, which means we are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe. January 6 was a major announcement by at least some groups—such as the Oath Keepers–that they are moving toward outright violence…In fact, the attack on the Capitol could very well be the first series of organized attacks in an open insurgency stage. It targeted infrastructure. There were plans to assassinate certain politicians and attempts to coordinate activity.

I want to believe we’ll find a path through without violence. I want to believe Americans will save each other from what we have unleashed. But wanting and believing and advocating and protesting can only carry us so far. The courts may fail to reign in growing unconstitutional acts.

It’s time to prepare for our own safety. The second amendment protects our right to bear arms, so that we can defend ourselves against a potentially unjust government—in this case, a government that may circumvent the judicial system and come for law-abiding citizens or permanent residents who voice dissidence. Perhaps we’ve found that moment in time when the left and right share ideals, when the Second Amendment, with all it’s controversy, is embraced by the left as necessary in a time when taking up arms feels simply logical.

Let me be clear that I am not advocating for violence against the government, law enforcement, or our military. I’m advocating for ensuring that if widespread violence occurs and we need to defend ourselves from harm or a faction of our government that goes rogue against our Constitution, we should be prepared to defend ourselves, our homes, and our families. I am a patriotic American who took an oath to support and defend the Constitution and the rights of all of us to be free. I intend to keep doing just that.

Share

Leave a comment