Earlier this week, Taylor S. Schumann, a shooting survivor and gun control advocate, argued that it’s not possible to be a Christian and a gun owner. And her primary argument – you guessed it – was based on emotion, not logic.
According to Schumann, people are trying to “serve two masters: Jesus and gun rights.” Apparently, those of us who believe in protecting ourselves and our loved ones put our firearms on the same playing field as Jesus, which is utterly ridiculous.
“I am angry about the ways guns have poisoned our country like lead seeping into our water. I am angry that people are taught to cling to their personal freedoms and their individual comforts above caring for real life human people,” she wrote in an opinion piece for Christianity Today. “I am angry that the God I believe in, the one who teaches us to love our neighbors, to sacrifice our lives for that of our friend, and to consider others more important than ourselves has been turned into a justification for a right he did not bestow and an ideology that looks nothing like him. So yes, I sure am angry. But more than that, I am sad.”
This notion that we should hold hands, sing kumbaya, and act as though the world is not a dangerous place is stupid. And I speak from experience there.
The Day I Didn’t Get A Choice
When I went off to college, I was young and dumb.
I really did believe that people were inherently good, something I still try really hard to see today.
I was under the impression that nothing bad could happen to me or my loved ones because I, myself, would never harm another individual.
Crime was a far-fetched idea that happened to others, not me. Rape, murder, burglaries. They were all foreign concepts to me, mostly because I had never been on the receiving end of those crimes.
My second semester of college, that all changed.
I went out on a date with a man who seemed nice. He was shy and quiet, kind of an outcast.
That day is burned into my soul because that’s the day that he took my innocence.
That’s the day he showed me just how truly dark and evil the world really is. It was the day I became a rape survivor.
From that point forward, I have looked at the world with a shadow cast over it.
I try to see the best in people and assume their intentions are pure.
But there is always a small part of me that is reluctant of others because I know not everyone is like me.
Not Everyone Has Christian Values
Not everyone is inherently good. No matter how badly we want that to be the case.
Not everyone has others’ best interests at heart.
My cries fell on deaf hears. Every plea ignored. My life torn apart.
The reason I’m a Second Amendment advocate and a Gun Owner because I am a Christian.
I never want another woman’s view of humanity to be tarnished by a monster.
I never want another woman to endure the years of heartache and grief that I’ve gone through. But more than anything, I want women to have the ability to fight off their attackers, something I wish I had during my assault.
I am a survivor – not a victim – of a violent crime. I had my power of choice taken away from me.
When Schumann asks “why should we be so afraid?” it’s evident that she has never fallen victim to a violent sexual predator.
She has the same mindset I did when I stepped onto my college campus. I’m glad she has never been the survivor of a sexual assault.
It’s something I would never wish upon my worst enemy. But it would be nice if people like her were realistic about the world we live in and the evils that lurk.
She, of all people, should know that evil people are out there. And just because she lives by Jesus’ commandments doesn’t mean everyone does.
Being a Christian or a Gun Owner does not automatically exclude anyone from danger.
Bad things happen to good people all the time and there is a long history to prove that in every corner or the world.
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