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Shooting guns.

To explain, I was (and am) a liberal American. I decided very early, despite my family that hunted and living in the Bible Belt, that I was never going to touch a gun. This was partially borne out of a sense of self-defense, as I spent years battling with my mental health, but the majority of my reasons were moral reasons, as I considered myself a pacifist.

As I aged, I watched things gradually go to shit in the world. Then a few things happened all at once in my life and around my friend group. I realized that, were I to encounter a gun in the wild, I had no idea how to secure it, clear it, or in the worst case scenario, use it to defend myself and others. That realization finally made me ask an older family member to take me to the gun range for a basic safety course, as he’d offered to do several times before.

It. Was. Awesome.

I went in terrified of guns. I came out knowing that, if I was ever faced with a situation where I was forced to use a gun, I would be able to do so.

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