We live in an age of smart tech but the gun is essentially still a mini-canon that blasts holes in people - why is that? Non lethal versions have been possible for a long time.
They carry guns here, those soulless clunks of metal. They call them "arms" - but they ain't. Arms are what your mama hugs you with, maybe the cold kind are what you get when no-one hugged you enough. But either way, this warm-blooded warrior is the weapon, it is his heart that is the gun, his love that is the everlasting bullet, forever fired and safe in the barrel, in the target and never left, exploding and intact. Real men are all about love.
It was as if the disease of his mind had manifested in his hands as a pistol. It was that genocidal impulse that was always in the homonids, the impulse that love cures and indifference magnifies. So I saw the gun as a poison to both him and the poor bugger on the other end.
When we felt the fear of others, we had a choice - to put our efforts into peace or war. So we made guns and called each a "piece" when it was anything but. Did we get "peace" of mind by removing a "piece" of someone else's? Did we "mind" the peace? The other route was to learn how to build trust and cooperation, to really love our neighbours. Perhaps we can still make that choice, do something good for God, proliferate food and shelter instead of weaponry. I think that's why this gun, this metal that sits so heavy in my palm, feels like an embodiment of human sin.
The cold metal made greyer the skin of her hand as if her blood ran from the gun. Caleb said that the chill was because the weapon took hostage a part of your soul; he said you only got it back if you used the gun for love, for protection and defence. Apparently it was part of the natural order of things and the gun, something made of the matter of this universe, had to obey it as much as we did.
The morning had more than a bite of frost and the air made Sarah's lungs feel chilled just to breath it in. Luke was digging into the freshly fallen leaves, having dragged out his fathers rake out of the garage. How he stumbled with it. Sarah stifled a laugh. That old fork must be heavier than him. He paused for a moment and bent low, examining the ground in front of him like he'd found some marvellous bug. In that suspended moment Sarah's heart stopped beating, the strong early light shining strongly from the steel barrel of the revolver. His face split a grin as he held it like all the cops do on the TV shows, "Finders keepers, mama!"
The conspiracy theorist would rather hold a gun than form a trusting and loving bond. They find trust more scary than bullets. Hence their irrational behaviour is rational from that warped perspective. If you can show them that society can function, that they can form trusting bonds with others they view as "different" in some way, then you have a chance to reverse some societal decay.