When I found out my new son-in-law was going to be from England, I was very much afraid I was going to be confronted with the typical European, afraid of guns and secure in their superiority over those violent Americans.

But on one of his visits before they married I offered to take him out to “make a joyful noise unto the Lord” and to my surprise he said sure.

I think to his surprise, he loved it, even though owning a gun wasn’t something he’d considered.

Guns were not something that I had thought about too much, as they were not a part of my culture. Really, the only times I had seen them were in movies and video games. It had never really crossed my mind as to what it would be like being a gun owner due to the fact that I was in a country that had no rights to bear arms. I have never been against guns but the thought of regular people outside of the police legally allowed to carry a weapon seemed unnatural. I will say that the media portrayed guns to be a “great evil” and the only time you would hear about them on the news was in some sort of travesty, like a school shooting or someone had been wrongfully killed. This, of course, influenced my thinking, as well as others in the U.K. Guns essentially were a disrupter of peace.

That said, like most first time shooters, he had a little trepidation.

On a serious note, there was a mixture of feelings. On the one hand, it was a lot of fun and I felt like a badass. There was a ‘wow’ moment where I just wanted to shoot more and more and more. On the other hand, it was scary, because guns were “meant to kill” and I could easily do harm to someone with this weapon in my hand if not used or handled properly. My opinion on them now has since changed, as I have increasingly become more educated on the subject through my time at the shooting range with my father-in-law and the Hunters Safety Course I recently took part in (and passed!).

There are, of course, more reasons for shooting than just hunting; and as he says, it can be very relaxing, although I might not have gone as far as he did …

It’s like sex. Afterward, you just feel like, “Whew, I needed that.”

It is a great way to release stress.

We tease him that he’s an American who just happened to be born in another country (no plans, so far as I know to naturalize yet) as he now owns several firearms, bought a Ford truck and occasionally listens to country music — and is a big supporter of the Second Amendment.

I am a supporter of the Second Amendment, and one of the biggest turning points for me is knowing how vulnerable you truly are without a firearm in dangerous situations. The best justification for gun ownership in my mind (other than the obvious right for people to hunt) is that “when only seconds matter, the police are minutes away.” Having a family now, I feel the responsibility to make those seconds count should I ever be in that situation myself.

And that, right there, is the crux of the argument for most of us. You have both the right and the responsibility to protect yourself and your family, and this young man who has only been in this country for three years understands it better than liberals born here ever will.