Respect the gun, you say? That’s dumb. I don’t have to respect the gun. All your gun means is that you can imagine a scenario in which you need to shoot someone. Whoa! Get away from me! That’s a dangerous mentality, and if you’ve ever heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy, you know you’re taking the first step toward tragedy.

I hate guns. Have you ever done something you hated out of spite toward yourself, like carry a gun even though, were it up to you, you’d probably just ban them nationwide? Me neither — yet.

If I carried a gun into the Youth Center this weekend, while I was supervising high school kids, everyone involved would be totally in danger. Don’t worry though, it’d be legal. That’s a lie, it wouldn’t — but I bet I could get off with a warning if I told the police I thought the law was effective already.

I don’t play first-person shooter video games because I’m not good at them. My aim is terrible. Why would anyone feel safer — me or those around me — just because I was carrying a gun that not everyone in the room could see?

Man, if I had a gun in my pocket, I’d probably shoot someone on accident.

The thing about guns is that you don’t ever need one unless something terrible is happening to you. I don’t know about you, but I can’t remember the last time something that terrible happened to me. All the terrible things I imagine happening to me involve like, getting dumped, or a car accident or something. Having a gun on me wouldn’t help either of those situations a lick.

The reason guns were invented was because swords were, by comparison, an inefficient killing machine. Who are you trying to kill with your guns? Me, I’m trying to kill specifically nobody. Killing scares me because I’m a millennial and generally afraid of violence.

If I was talking to a person, and they said to me, “I have a gun on me right now — guess where it is,” I’d say, “Is this guessing game the entire point of concealed carry’s existence as opposed to open carry?”

I, uh, don’t know very much about guns.

But hey, I can still carry one around without you knowing, starting July 1.

Hope ya’ll are as excited as me.

-Eliot Sill