I’ll believe liberals are interested in winning when they learn how to use guns. I’ll believe liberals are interested in more than playing at an imaginary world of alternative identities and ideals when they quit acting shocked that I own a BB gun.

Mao said that power comes from the barrel of a gun. It may be distasteful—and there may be other, better, sources of power—but still it’s true. Liberals shouldn’t pretend to care about power if they don’t even know which end is the barrel.

All liberals decrying violence, all liberals who refuse to enter homes that have guns, should spend at day at the gun club. Call it an “immersion experience” if that helps. Sit there at the firing range for a couple of hours. Absorb the boredom of watching folks fire off a few hundred dollars of ammo trying to hit a bull’s eye a few hundred feet away. Watch their silent comraderie. Tell them you’ve never shot before. They’ll probably offer to let you try your hand at it. They might even buy you lunch

Then go home and try to tell yourself that these are violent people. Go home and tell yourself you haven’t been getting off on demonizing folks so you can admire your own liberal virtue.

I learned to use a gun—a BB gun— at the age of eight. Every two years I’d be given a new gun and taught to use it. I hated it. It was frightfully dull, the kick of the rifle hurt, and shooting at targets seemed pointless. Cleaning the guns was a hated chore.

But it was a skill my father and uncle believed I should have. They hoped it might become a hobby, as it had for them. (My cousin and I never caught the fever.) Like mowing a lawn, sawing wood, or hammering a nail, it is a basic adult skill. Even as a child I seemed to understand this. Even as a child I realized that as a young adult I could be forced to use one in war.

I wish we lived in a world without guns. I suspect most gun users feel the same. I hate guns. But at least I know how to use one.