AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

So much of the anti-gun push is based on feelings, not facts.

While anti-gunners tout biased research or inconclusive data in an attempt to appear reasonable, their ultimate weapon is and has always been feelings. Why else would they trot out the families of shooting victims or those who survive mass shootings? They’re banking on their grief and torment to sway you into supporting anti-gun legislation.

A prime example happened in Des Moines, Iowa a month ago at that city’s second March For Our Lives rally.

On Valentines Day, Melissa Zapata arranged 17 candles into the shape of a heart, watching the flames flicker in memory of the lives lost to gun violence at her alma mater, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, a year earlier.

“Such trauma and emotional stress does not go away overnight, or even a year after the incident,” said Zapata, 24, a medical student at Des Moines University, mentioning two Parkland students who’d committed suicide in the past week.

She was among half a dozen students from the Des Moines area who spoke on the steps of Iowa’s Capitol on Sunday afternoon, urging those gathered to vote for responsible gun reform as part of the city’s second March for Our Lives event.

“These guns aren’t what’s keeping us safe, but what’s making us afraid,” said Jill Caranci, a junior at Valley High School who said she didn’t think much about gun laws until she had to hunker down in the corner of her classroom as part of an active shooter training.

Caranci’s comments, in particular, are fascinating, in a morbid kind of way.

Now, we know that even if you count suicides as “gun deaths”–something anti-gunners routinely do–you’re still looking at less than 40,000 people “killed” each year.

While that’s a lot, let’s also remember that even the CDC found around 2.5 million people defend themselves with firearms annually.

So, Caranci is wrong. Guns do make us safer. It does so by orders of magnitude.

But she’s also not wrong. Guns are making her afraid, and that is what she’s hoping will be the deciding factor. She believes that your rights come secondary to her feelings. That’s not how the world works, nor should it.

First, let’s face the facts that her feelings aren’t even universal. She is afraid. Not everyone is. Hell, not everyone her age is afraid. My son is around the same age, and he’s not. He “feels” guns make him safer. Whose feelings are more valid, especially when we’re talking about creating laws based on feelings?

Second of all, she’s expecting people to fall all over themselves to appease her feelings. I bet she wonders why so many people think her generation is so entitled.

Here’s a life lesson for Miss Caranci: No one gives a damn about your feelings. They don’t matter. I’m not going to change my opinions about guns and their role in keeping ordinary Americans safe because you feel so hard. Frankly, no one else is going to be swayed by that kind of nonsense either. If you want to preach to the choir, go right ahead, but the rest of us will roll our eyes and go right on with our lives.

After all, we understand what our guns represent.