Dangerous Clowns.

Guns are not for hunting. They’re for feeding dreams, and many of these dreams are deranged.

You convince yourself that you will shoot an intruder, when chances are, you will be disarmed or shoot your own son.

You hold the irredeemable conceit that you can hold off an oppressive government, when the smallest modern army squad could obliterate you.

You place the weapon in your home or car like a talisman, believing that, despite its inanimacy, it will “protect” you.

Yes, if the apocalypse happens tomorrow, those with guns will benefit, but those who can take guns away from you will benefit more, and that is just the beginning of a cycle of terror that may or may not include you for very long.

Guns are a religion, a fetish. We worship at their black smoothness, their oily metal, their power and their feel.

“Feel the heft,” they say. “Marvel at the balance.”

As to a symbol of virility and power, who can imagine a contemporary movie without … just … the … right … gun?

It’s time to step back from their disorienting gleam and gather our wits and our sanity.

If clownish people brandish arms in clownish ways, real people will be injured or die…and for what: so someone could feel a little bigger, a little safer, a little less alone?

Guns make dangerous friends, and are real enemies.

Any clown should know this. Not every clown should have a gun.

Illustration by Paul Antoniades