AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File

I see a lot of headlines day in, day out. I hear and read a lot of comments about gun control, as well.

Earlier today, I came across this story and the included quote and figured it was time to address it.

Lawmakers, including Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, gathered to talk about gun violence and their desire to change the Commonwealth’s gun laws on the eve of a special session of the General Assembly.

Del. Delores McQuinn (D-Richmond) led Sunday’s Stop the Gun Violence Rally at 31 Street Baptist Church.

“How many have lost a sister or a brother?” McQuinn said. “Why are we still fighting these battles when there are some things we can do to help create a paradigm shift?”

Why are we still fighting these battles? That’s easy. We’re still fighting them because you all won’t shut up and listen.

We’re still fighting these battles because the only solution your minds can comprehend is gun control. You can’t even acknowledge that there are potential solutions out there that don’t inhibit the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. You don’t want to do anything except restrict gun ownership in various ways, most of which won’t stop the violence we’re talking about.

Further, you don’t listen when we tell you that gun control will make the problem worse. No, I’m not saying you should agree with it. I mean, you should since it’s the truth, but I don’t want to force you to accept reality. Disagree? Fine. But don’t pretend that we’re fine with kids being killed or anything of the sort.

That pisses me off for one very good reason.

The truth is that no one wants kids to be murdered. We’re still battling because we’re sick and damn tired of being presented as being pro-child murder. We’re not about to budge a single inch because you’re not willing to listen to us about anything. You’re too busy vilifying us, pretending we’re in favor of things like mass shootings and dead kids.

Why should we listen? No one responds well to attempted bullying.

That’s all this line of reasoning is. It’s nothing more than an attempt to bully us into silence. It’s pretending that you’re somehow better than us and trying to badger us into complying with your wishes.

The thing is, we’re not going anywhere. We’re a bunch of pain-in-the-butt, in-your-face, freedom-loving jacka**es who aren’t going to go anywhere to roll over and die. We’re here, and we’re going to keep fighting. We have no real choice. The only alternative from our perspective is to allow people like you to restrict gun ownership further and make the problem even worse. When the good guys are disarmed, who will be around to stop the bad guys from hurting them?

Nothing.

So that’s why we still have this battle. It’s why we’re going to keep having it, too.

I’m not going anywhere.