Guns, BDSM, Guilt. Action?

I was listening to the Savage Love Magnum Edition today over lunch (Episode 343 for those playing along at home), then on my walk to the bus stop on my way home. Really, this is good stuff. It's worth your $20 for half a year's worth of extra special goodness!What I'm commenting on is only in the magnum edition. I'm not going to transcribe it. But it goes something like this:Caller: "I'm a woman and I'm kinky. I get off on watching BDSM porn. Ever since the thing in Cleveland happened I'm getting kind of squicked by what I like -- it's too close to the shit that went down in Cleveland."The thing in Cleveland, for the uninformed, is that Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were held captive in some perv's basement for a decade.The conversation on the show quickly transitioned into a bit of a stand on guns and violence as well. The comparison was drawn -- differentiating in fact -- between the incident in Sandy Hook and movies. Dan watched Django Unchained with all the violence that entails a few weeks after the shootings at the school and noted that he put them in different mental buckets; one was real the other entertainment. Both him and Mistress Matisse said that what they do is different in some fundamental way from what happened in Sandy Hook. The notion that if you could eliminate BDSM porn you would eliminate evil was dismissed out of hand as an absurdity.Further, Ms. Matisse mentioned that many women feel guilty about rape fantasies -- somehow thinking about rape in a good way makes them, in their mind, complicit with the rape culture in this country (i.e. the general victim blaming, et. al.). Dan opined that much could be owning something bad and churning it over in their heads to own it and control it themselves.As I was walking, I was thinking about how much all this relates to the gun debate. The same arguments that were being made apply equally to guns. The notion that what an individual does is not representative of everyone who is obliquely involved. The idea that banning or otherwise regulating something that would only apply to those not involved would somehow solve the problem is similarly equivalent; banning certain types of guns wouldn't end violence, it would only prevent guns from being used for good.When you go to a club there's a lot of "violence" going on. I use the scare quotes in this case because violence that is consensual is ipso facto not violence. If you ban things, all that happens is you push things out of view. Getting rid of the good community and removing the support system from the BDSM players would only lead to people going further to the fringes and playing in less safe ways.Both BDSM and guns are, in many ways, edge play. In both you can have fun. In either you can get hurt. In both you have people that don't respect the rules -- either that of the community or the laws of the land.Can you have fun with BDSM? Yes, of course you can. Should dog leashes be banned because some nut job in Cleveland used them in a bad way? No. Should everyone with a leash be lumped into the same bucket as the aforementioned nut job? No. Did the whip do the bad thing or was it the person? No, of course not -- it was the person.Can you have fun with guns? Yes, of course you can. Can someone do something bad with guns? Yes. Should guns be blamed for violence? No. Did the gun do the bad thing or was it the person? No, of course not -- it was the person.Both can draw a knee-jerk "think of the children" argument.I do have to draw a very clear distinction however.Does anyone need BDSM? It might make you more sane, but you can survive without it. You might be sad and not fulfilled. Can aspects of BDSM (I'm not calling the Cleveland shit BDSM because BDSM implies, in my mind, safe, sane, and consensual) be used for evil? Yes. Is the mere act of hitting someone and causing pain evil? No -- I have personally seen otherwise. Can an evil person do evil with the techniques? Yes. Evil is not the act, the evil is in the person.Does anyone need guns? Yes. You might not, but sometimes guns or, more broadly any weapon wielded in self defense (including whips and chains perhaps), can be the difference between life and death. Using guns can be fun, that's certainly what I use them for. Someone using guns for evil can be evil. The real distinction is sometimes in real life guns are good -- sometimes the only good that can save you. The evil is not in the gun, the evil is in the person.

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Your kink is not my kink but your kink is ok.You might not like having guns, but you shouldn't project your views on others as long as they are not hurting you.