(Originally Posted 12/5/06)
TRIGGER WARNING: Gun Stuff. Pun and reality intended.
I am a gun and freedom enthusiast. I always have been. I first shot a gun, when I was six. I got my first subscription to a gun magazine, when I was twelve. I didn't own an actual firearm until I was 19.
I have been all over the map on politics. I voted Republican, Democrat, Perot (whatever the hell he was), split ticket, registered Libertarian recently, and pretty consistently voted Republican over the past 15 years.
But one thing that has grown inside me is an understanding that I am a single-issue voter. In the simplest analysis, I am a pro-gun voter. But if you talk to my Facebook friends, coworkers, analog friends, and neighbors, you would think that I was a libertarian Republican. That isn't the kernel of my truth - simplified or complexified.
In the end, I am an anarchocapitalist. My favorite U.S. document is the Declaration of Independence, despite its specificity. I love the flawed Bill of Rights. The guarantee of free speak and assembly is sacrosanct and needs no government modifications. But the gun is concrete, it is a tool and tactile.
Though I might pledge fealty to certain rights, a Constitution, or amendments, in the end I vote singularly for the gun.