This Is Us
I Bought a Gun Because I’m Terrified of What Will Happen After Election Day
Fear won, and I can no longer afford to hold onto my anti-gun ideals
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“There is no such thing as paranoia. Your worst fears can come true at any moment.” — Hunter S. Thompson
There’s nothing fancy about it, but it’ll kill if I ask it to, which I suppose is the defining characteristic of a gun. In that sense, it’s perfect. If the shots are well placed, it can kill 18 times before it asks for any assistance in continuing. Ruthlessly efficient and rightfully terrifying, it represents protection in the most dangerous way possible. I hate that I had to buy it, but my fear of what could be coming won out over my ideals.
A year ago, I wrote an article about my struggle over buying a gun. The decision to buy a gun is not one I’d have made if I still lived alone; more accurately, it’s a decision I wouldn’t have had to consider. As a white man in the United States in the year 2020, I face no more threats than I did in 2019, 2009, or at any other point in my privilege-filled life; but I don’t live alone anymore.
In 2017 I married an amazing, brilliant Black woman and became a stepfather to four equally amazing and brilliant Black children. As a lifelong radical leftist who grew up in predominantly Black spaces, with predominantly Black friends, I thought I had a grasp on my privilege and their struggles. But I soon learned that hubris is not solely the province of the bigoted and the powerful.
The day-to-day reality of being Black in the United States is simply beyond the capacity of white people’s comprehension. The constant, unrelenting pressure and subtext involved in every human interaction are exhausting in ways we’ll never have to feel. The ever-present threats to their physical safety are real, and I understand only enough to know I’ll never truly understand. What I do understand, with every fiber of my being, is that I have to protect my family in…
