I really think it’s true of more of them than you would think — but of course, we’re a country of over 330 million people and there are bound to be legions of people who subscribe to a popular general belief for nefarious reasons. I very strongly do not think most people are pro-life for evil reasons. There are too many relatively logical, compassionate and frankly faith-driven (again, that one gets a little prickly, but I am also inclined to think most people driven by faith endeavor to do so because they sincerely hope that following their faith will enrich not just their own lives, but make the world a better place. Whether that is what actually happens is a slightly different conversation!) arguments that could support being pro-life to assume worse intentions of the broader group.

And as someone who enthusiastically supports gun control, I also think even just invoking proponents of gun rights as a rationale for why pro-lifers are more likely to be coming from a nefarious perspective is IMO not right or constructive as an argument.

Even gun rights, quite like but also unlike abortion, exist on a far more nuanced spectrum than just “The people who support this are evil, and the people who support that are good.” I also dream of a gun-less world. And yet, as a joyful rewatching of Lord of the Rings will convey (or the tragic event of the Islamist who carried out a devastating mass car ramming terror attack in New Orleans last night), there are man-made dangers outside of just guns in this world (though I do wish that absolutist, devout guns rights activists could at least concede that a pistol does not possess the same level of destructive potential as an assault rifle…).

Many gun owners (reasonable ones) have guns A) because they sincerely believe it will help protect their families, B) because they hunt and eat their own food, or C) because they remember and feel they are honoring the history and founding of America. Certainly there’s the ugly side of what colonists did to Native Americans (and I concede that narrative can feel diminished or missing from many people who see the Constitution as completely sacrosanct), but it’s also true for many proud Americans that the right to bear arms is what helped them to disentangle from what they perceived as a decolonial struggle against the British monarchy.

Personally, I do believe in the power of intentions, and in that sense I think that owning guns and expecting there to be violence can on some level cultivate or invite violence (even if just by making you feel more paranoid and trigger physiological reactions that you are in danger). And yet, again, the world is dangerous. We hold so much space for select groups of people who are deemed allowed to experience trauma, and to receive compassion.

Yet all of us possess so-called lizard brains as part of our cognition; we are all driven by instincts to try to survive and show up as best as we can to meet the infinite dangers of being alive.

I still firmly agree with you that there should be restrictions. But I think ideology is very strong, and a lot of guns rights people are probably accustomed to being dismissed as evil by a large part of this country. In that sense, like abortion, I still think that trying to understand a little better rather than assume worst intentions is going to help us reach a more constructive compromise and way of living and coexisting.