While I tend to lump all anti-gun crusaders in the same pot, it’s mostly because it’s more efficient to do so. I don’t care if someone is a Fudd or a “ban ’em all” type, I think they’re all wrong, and it’s just not feasible to address every one separately. It’s just not.

However, from time to time, I see something from one particular subset of the anti-gunners that makes me think to myself, “This needs some special attention for this particular brand of stupid.”

Such an opportunity presented itself when I read the first paragraph of an op-ed from the Salt Lake Tribune.

Guns do not keep the peace.

People with love in their hearts keep the peace. People with fear and hatred in their hearts sometimes use guns to kill other people, whereas people whose hearts are full of love don’t do that.

Oh my sweet and fluffy Lord. Someone actually wrote that, and someone else actually published it. Let’s let that sink in just a bit and continue.

Guns are not designed as a peacekeeping tool; guns are designed to kill. Killing is their sole purpose and usage and therefore cannot be used to keep any sort of peace. Peace is not the absence of war, it is the ability to retain love and calm in our hearts despite the craziness of life around us. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Albert Einstein both described peace as requiring the presence of justice. Justice requires the absence of hatred: the presence of love.

The idea that guns are a good tool for peace is an idea that needs to be revealed for what is it: a lie. Love for others is the only tool for peace that exists. Without sufficient love in our hearts, we fear others and feel the need for a defense against them and their ideas. Some people are so afraid, bigoted, and/or unloving that they feel safe when they have a weapon that could kill other people, but that is never really the answer to those internal maladies. Fear, bigotry and hatred are not overcome by owning or using the tools of destruction.

That explains why every law enforcement officer in this country carries love on their belt and not a gun.

Oh, wait! They don’t do that. They carry a firearm because bad people have guns and have this annoying tendency to shoot people for whatever reason.

What we see here is the Fluffy Bunny Anti-Gunner, a special breed who believes their stance against guns isn’t just a matter of disagreement on how to make our communities safer but is a moral virtue. This kind of person seems to honestly believe that it’s morally superior to be raped and killed in an alley than to stand over the body of your would-be attacker who suddenly has sprouted a couple of new holes that allow blood to escape.

The reality is that while peace and love all sound great on a bumper sticker, the real world doesn’t conform to the Fluffy Bunnies’ hopes and dreams. It has real people with real desires and real impulse control issues who don’t give a damn that your preferred weapon is love. Or, more correctly, they do care. They’re thrilled with that because it makes you a better victim.

While the writer of this nonsense, Maren Mecham, isn’t wrong when she says “people with fear and hatred in their hearts sometimes use guns to kill other people,” she doesn’t seem to grasp that there are also people who can and do use guns to stop those “with fear and hatred in their hearts.”

What these fear- and hate-filled individuals are generally not stopped by, however, are new laws that interfere with the rights of private citizens to arm themselves. Pretending otherwise is the biggest lie of all.