Is it possible to be a progressive DUer and a gun owner?

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105. I loathe guns, I'm a progressive and

I think you can most certainly be a gun owner and be progressive.

I used to live in Colorado and had a friend who hunted and he, too, ate everything he killed. In fact, his hunting was what helped cause my vegetarianism! It was the second time I actually saw the bodies of the animals he killed and then expected me to eat. I couldn't -- I got nauseous when I faced the food on my plate. I had the same reaction when I went to a luau as a kid in Hawaii -- the pig they slaughtered & cooked made me physically ill when I faced the prospect of eating its meat. Soon enough, hamburgers weren't hamburgers, they were cow faces flashing in front of my eyes and I could no longer eat them.

Twice I've been around supposedly "responsible" gun owners who've acted in ways that were terrifying. Both were in situations that made them angry and they got their guns and started waving them around in threatening ways. Scared the shit out of me and confirmed my antipathy toward guns & gun ownership.

All of that being said, gun ownership and progressivism aren't mutually exclusive. I have no problem with my meat-eating friends who buy their meat at local stores. And I have no problem with people who eat what they hunt. When I saw the deer heat on my neighbor/fundamentalist minister's wall when we had a neighborhood meeting in his rec room, I told him I was going to puke (he was good enough to remove it) and asked him if "he liked killing God's creatures." Yeah, I wasn't particularly polite about it -- it disgusted me. I have to admit I didn't get past that to ask if they ate the venison from the deer he murdered. (Okay, so it still disgusts me even if I accept what hunters who eat their kills do.)

Do I agree with all of your points? Nope. But that doesn't make you any less progressive than I am. So yeah, even for this gun hater, you can be a gun owner & be progressive. They're not mutually exclusive.