5 Types of Anti-Gunners (& How to Spot Them)

Idea: Send pieces-of-bread headphones to Sen. Cory Booker.

This whole thing will be a lot funnier if you read it to yourself in David Attenborough’s voice, but Gordon Ramsay’s will work okay too.

The taxonomy of anti-gunners is fascinating, and unlike some other fauna they’re not difficult to observe in their natural environment. Venture carefully through the doors of your local small-batch, farm-to-table, grass-fed, organic, fair-trade coffeeshop and sit quietly in a corner, and the gun-grabbers will quickly come to accept your presence as harmless. But what’s this? They seem to come in a variety of species, some colorful of plumage, others drab and dull. The truth of the matter is that there are five distinct species of anti-gunner, and with careful observation, you’ll soon be able to easily tell them apart.

Only Baby Boomers and GenXers will know what this is…

1. The Headline Reader

By far the most common subspecies of anti-gunner, the Headline Reader is a person who prides himself on staying well-informed on the hot-button topics of the day. He does this, primarily, by skimming the headlines of his favorite news sources. So if he sees a headline saying “Gun death statistics: CDC study says gun deaths are on the rise after years of decline,” he will assume that the headline is the substance of the article and that there’s nothing misleading there. The Headline Reader may not necessarily be a terrible person, merely a naive one who simply doesn’t pay much attention to news articles that don’t interest him.

You can easily spot the Headline Reader in the field by asking him if he can quote a single study or fact to back up his assertions. If his response is, “But everybody knows…” go ahead and mark him off in your observation manuals.

Look at me! I’m a good person!

2. The Virtue Signaler

The Virtue Signaler, once thought endangered, has experienced a significant rebound in population. The Virtue Signaler isn’t uninformed, exactly–in fact, she may very well know deep in her heart that were she ever in danger of death or serious bodily injury that she would want a gun to protect herself. She may, in fact, own one. However, she knows that such crimethink would cause her to be ostracized by all her cool friends…after all, everybody knows that good people deplore gun violence and therefore, guns as well. Right?

At first, it’s easy to mistake the Virtue Signaler for a Headline Reader. The best way to tell them apart is by the multitude of other “virtuous” causes she espouses, all of which will generally be displayed on the bumper of her Prius like the gorgeous mating display of a peacock.

That’s one way to focus on the front sight, I guess.

3. The Anti-Anti-Gun Controller

The AAGC subspecies is commonly mistaken for the Virtue Signaler, and they do tend to resemble one another superficially, but there’s a significant difference: The Virtue Signaler is motivated by fear of social disapproval, while the Anti-Anti-Gun Controller is motivated by hate and disgust for people who support the Second Amendment. They may not even particularly care about the issue, actually–it’s much more about hoping to punish “the other side.”

You can draw an AAGC into the open by leaving a decoy for them to discover…perhaps an NRA hat or a MAGA sticker. If their immediate response is to tell you that you have a tiny penis, which you doubtless use to make sweet, sweet love to your gun*, you’ll have spotted your first AAGC in the wild. Kudos!

*Joke’s on them. I use my tiny penis to make sweet, sweet love to my archery equipment.

Like that, only not cute.

4. The Criminal

The Criminal has a very simple reason for supporting civilian disarmament: It makes his job easier. He would very much prefer that the only people who have guns, in fact, are…well, him. He gets very indignant about the idea that he might not only get to complete his crime, but that he might be injured or killed by an armed victim. Sadly, The Criminal is rather hard to spot in the wild, since they generally adopt the protective plumage of a law-abiding citizen minding his own business until it’s time to strike. However, you might just get to see one in the courtroom after he sues his victim for daring to fight back.

5. The Despot

The Despot, like the Criminal, does adopt harmless camouflage in an attempt to get closer to his or her gun-grabbing goals. The difference is that this camouflage usually assumes the form of a pantsuit, with or without a tie depending on the Despot’s sex. The Despot understands that an armed citizenry is tougher to push around than a disarmed one, and is quite eager to persuade as many gun owners as possible to submit to licensing, registration, and eventual confiscation. Whether it’s 1930s Berlin or New Jersey in 2019, the Despot is difficult to identify visually–it’s best to close one’s eyes and listen to the Despot’s mating calls. They tend to sound quite a bit like “Nobody is trying to take your guns away,” “It’s just temporary until we can establish order,” or “If it saves just one life, it’ll be worth it.”

You may have noticed that I didn’t have a funny .gif for the Despot. Instead, I have a mating call of my own for him/her:

I just spent like 5 minutes practicing that in the mirror.