The dark side of gun culture is not that bad people use guns to do bad things.

The dark side of gun culture is that you have to look in the mirror and realize that there are people out there who would kill you, who would kill your wife, your children, someone else’s children, and they would feel no regret, no remorse, no shame.

You are simply an obstacle, a thing that needs to be moved out of the way so they can have what they want – your TV, your car, your wallet, infamy.

They would not process the fact that you would never get to kiss your wife again, that you would never get to hug your kid again.

If this shocks you, makes you recoil, makes you weep, you are not alone.

The dark side of gun culture is not the machine we use for protection, it is the traumatic process of realizing that there are monsters “out there” who do horrific things. But the monsters are not stupid. They know about our machines with bullets inside them. They know we are out there, waiting to stop them, ready to stop them. That’s why they lurk, on the dark side of gun culture.