Kate's+Page

= Which side are you on? =

By Kate Spencer


 * I put a gun on my Christmas list this year.**


 * I didn’t get one. The 40-caliber Heckler and Koch I had lovingly picked out for myself online wasn’t waiting underneath the tree as I had always dreamed. I did, however, get one that shoots deadly foam darts. Looks like I’ll be building my arsenal from Nerf guns up.**


 * Why do I need a gun? I live in rural Colorado where bears, mountain lions and coyotes run rampant. When heading out for a morning jog, I load my dad’s 9 mm Browning handgun and media type="file" key="Spencer.TIB fences" align="right" width="240" height="20"**
 * strap it to my waist for protection. I’m a girl who runs with a gun.**


 * Now you probably think I’m one of those conservative nuts from the NRA that everyone talks about.**


 * Well, sure. I am a proud gun-toting gal, a rodeo lady who loves bucking broncos and swaggering cowboys, and a fierce supporter of the military. I have definite tendencies that some would call conservative.**


 * But wait, there’s more!**


 * I am a registered Democrat, I attend a liberal university in Boulder, Colorado, and I co-founded my high school’s Amnesty International chapter. Distinctly liberal.**


 * So what am I really?**


 * My friends call me a fence-sitter, but that’s not really it at all. I’m the opposite of a fence-sitter. I am a fence-jumper.**


 * In the morning, I’ll be hanging out in one pasture with my gun-toting buddies and a few cowboys. But in the afternoon, you might find me on the other side of the fence, hobnobbing with the LGBTQ community and discussing animal rights. I leap wildly from pasture to pasture with complete disregard for the fence. To me, the fence is but a nuisance created by those who see in black and white.**


 * My friends criticize me for being too conciliatory, for walking too much down the middle. Pick a side, they say. Stand up for what you believe in, they urge.**


 * The problem is that everyone likes to stereotype. Everyone likes to fit others into tiny little boxes that help them organize information in their brains. Are you left or right? Liberal or conservative? Democrat or Republican? Pick a side.**


 * Just because I live in the sticks where exercising also means carrying a handgun on your hip to ward off some of the forest’s nastier creatures does not mean that I am one of “those” gun-toting Republicans, just as having founded my high school’s Amnesty International does not mean I didn’t always want to work for the CIA when I grew up.**


 * Sometimes it’s just more fun to be a walking contradiction, someone who people look at and then do a double-take, someone you can’t fit into a nice neat box, someone who is a shade of gray rather than black and white. Sometimes, a social liberal just needs to cowboy up and head to a rodeo, and sometimes a girl just needs to run with a gun in the woods.**


 * I believe in jumping the fence. It’s far more exciting than picking a side.**

//**Kate Spencer is a senior journalism and international affairs student at the University of Colorado-Boulder. She is an active blogger on issues including gay rights, animal rights, journalism, education and the military.**//