It bounces around in this discussion. I'll provide you with my definitions.

Murder=evil. Yes.

Murder of children=evil. Yes+

NRA/NRA=evil. If and only if stupid=evil, in which case we're all in trouble. The leaders of the organization are really more mouth and money than anything. The organization has so many members who roll their eyes (yes, really) at the leadership but stick with it because they feel the need to be defended by somebody loud while under attack for being, um, evil gun owners, enablers of child murder and generally bloodthirsty beasts. If that sense of being under siege themselves were lifted, who knows whether the NRA would retain its grip? Which leads us to the next category...

Owning guns=evil. Not in my experience, because I've never known any gun owner who's shot another human being in civilian life.

Being careless with the guns you own=evil. Not as clear. More like "very very bad". But I grew up Catholic, and we learned to score these things for points in confession.

Shooting people with guns=evil. Yes, if unprovoked, but No if in defense of self or others. Defense is defined here as "preventing imminent injury or death".

Owning particular kinds of guns to be decided by committee=evil. Well, no. More like "dangerous", which is what opens the door for discussion and negotiation. Risk assessment, like that. All parties should have reps on said committee.

Throwing the word "evil" around robs it of its meaning. Please decide what you hate. If it's fellow citizens who never did anyone an injury, please reconsider.

Every day I work in what the NRA, in its tone-deaf splendor, calls a target-rich environment. I've been aware of the possibility of being murdered since a girl my age in my city, different school, was murdered in the woods 300 yards from her house. They never caught whoever did it. I've understood about mass murder since the Richard Speck murders in 1966, when I was almost 12. Sure, I'd read about the Holocaust by then -- I read everything I could get my hands on -- but those kinds of numbers are hard for a child to get her head around. Those student nurses, well, I knew they could have been me, a little older.

These little things have made me very aware of escape routes and evaculation plans, which I develop on my own for work, home, and for any public building I spend time in. Just today at the library, we talked about this and I gave everyone my opinion of the way to clear the building. They were amazed, because no one else had considered such an event. I was amazed that no one realized that all the exits except one are on the same side of the building.

I have the good sense to be scared of the possibility of an armed attack; I've thought about how to respond, right down to thinking about something I hate to energize me and turn the fear into something I can use. But I'm not willing to jump into calling people evil because they own potentially lethal machines. I'll save that adjective for the person who has the will to use one on an innocent fellow human, especially one in my little target-rich environment.

For the record, it makes me very uncomfortable to fight with you, and with some of the others, because I know you have a good heart. I can't agree, and I won't lie. So love me for myself, or not at all, but at least you know you have the real deal. *sigh*