Have Yourself a Dysfunctional Little Christmas…Or Don’t

First, to our dedicated readership, we hope that you have a merry Christmas and a happy new year. During this season, as we move toward a new calendar year, it is common practice to take inventory and to consider our blessings. If you have a family that gets along, despite personal differences or beliefs, count yourself as blessed, or at least lucky. 

I just got off the telephone with a friend whom I believe needed as much to vent as to seek advice. My friend confided in me that he’s traveling to be with family; mothers and fathers, in-laws, nieces and nephews, grandkids, the standard affair. 

As it was explained to me, a situation just materialized where one of the family members — an in-law to my friend — issued a verbal manifesto to the extent that before he would bring his family, which includes kids, to this gathering at the home of the family patriarch, all the guns need to be locked up and no one can be carrying.

It was pretty obvious to my friend this demand was aimed at him personally, as the in-law knows my friend is a responsible adult citizen who habitually carries a concealed firearm as a matter of course. My pal stated that there was no way he was going to voluntarily disarm himself just to appease a person whose opinion he does not respect. His conundrum was that, as a dedicated person of the gun, our subject is also habitually honest and he didn’t know if he could make himself lie if confronted.

Crazy, But Not Too Crazy

Many of you might be thinking, that’s a crazy situation and you couldn’t imagine having to deal with that. Sadly, we have two types of people living in America; those who want to live their lives and be left alone and those for whom it’s not good enough to live their lives, they feel they need to force everyone else to live as they see fit.

This isn’t just a gun thing, by the way, this is a fundamental difference between right and left. It’s not good enough for a vegan not to eat meat, they need to stop you from eating it. It wasn’t good enough for a leftist not to smoke, they needed to stop others from doing it, too. More recently, it wasn’t good enough for the sheep to take the Covid shots, they needed to bully everyone else into taking it…for their own good or something.

There have been numerous liberal leftist organizations putting out talking points for their psychotic members to use during otherwise pleasant family gatherings. The left encourages the type of behavior that we are discussing here. They actively encourage conflict and dysfunction, not peace on Earth.

My Advice

I listened to my friend express his concerns, formulating my answer as he spoke, then I freely admitted something to him that he already knew. Were I to be in his shoes, my first instinct would be to inform said relative that they should venture forth and vigorously fornicate themselves posthaste. 

From a practical standpoint, the antagonist in question isn’t telling my friend that he can’t come to his home while carrying a gun. The hubris of the left knows no bounds. He’s trying to say that my friend can’t carry while in another family member’s house, a person who isn’t an anti-gun wacko. As you might have already figured out, the zealot in question is using the threat of not allowing family to see his kids in order to exert control over the situation. 

What we have here is classic leftist dysfunction. I’m going to use whatever I can to force others to bend to my will. 

Students of human psychology will understand that such a person isn’t going to exhibit that kind of behavior just once and then let it go. A psychologically abusive person, such as this, only grows more emboldened and controlling the more often their threats and actions achieve the desired result. A child who throws a public tantrum and isn’t punished, but is instead bribed with a cookie, is going to throw more tantrums, not fewer.

Outside of the obvious recourse of telling the antagonist to get bent, my other advice was to weigh the situation and decide if you can just not be around that other person. Of course, going back to psychology, let’s say my friend decides that it’s not worth the confrontation and bows out of the family gathering. The antagonistic in-law isn’t going to alter their behavior. If you get through this Christmas without a confrontation, another one will come sooner or later. 

That’s Not the Point    

There are appeasers out there who say, What’s the big deal? If your in-law really has such a problem with guns, just lock yours in the car for the duration of the family gathering. Still others will say, I support the Second Amendment, but it’s not worth having a big family fight. 

First of all, no one has the authority or the right to force you to disarm. But this situation, where a gun might seem to be the central theme, isn’t at all about guns. It’s about control and who has it. If you’re comfortable allowing others to arbitrarily tell you what you can and can’t do, I pity you, but I’m not coming to you for advice. 

Secondly, you need to ask yourself why you carry a gun. Do you do it for Instagram photos or are you carrying a gun for the same reason you’re carrying traumatic first aid gear? We don’t carry concealed handguns because we expect a fight, we carry because we know that we can’t control the actions of other people. 

Carrying a handgun occasionally is akin to purchasing automobile insurance that covers you only on eight random days each month. Would you buy that kind of insurance plan? Of course you wouldn’t, because you have no idea when you’re going to need the policy.

If you’re okay with someone bullying you into disarming yourself, you really don’t understand the point of being an armed citizen. Jeff Cooper famously stated in one of his many books, If you cannot reach your gun in three seconds, you have missed the point of the lesson (paraphrased).

Responsible, trained, adult humans who carry firearms habitually do so to save lives. Even the lives of their incredibly annoying relatives. Live your life as you please. For my part, I’ll do my best to heed the advice of my friend, James Yeager; Your responsibility to be ready for the fight never ends…not even on Christmas.  

 

 

Paul G. Markel is a combat decorated United States Marine veteran. He is also the founder of Student the Gun University and has been teaching Small Arms & Tactics to military personnel, police officers, and citizens for over three decades.