Despite living in the U.S. for my entire life — including the Midwest for four years — I have never, not once, ever touched a gun. Until today! I was hanging out in Hawker's Lockers pawn shop on 82nd Avenue for a story about the economy and, of course, conversation with the good-natured young woman behind the counter turned to her surprising love of guns. While some reports says gun sales spiked dramatically before and after the election, the Hawkers Lockers workers say they haven't seen any difference. According to pawn shop employees, you should forget the stock market. Gold and guns are your surest investment bets, since (at least in this country) they never depreciate in value. "Though a few weeks ago, I was at Dutch brothers and the coffee guy started asking me about where I work," offered Cassie, the young woman, "He said he wanted to buy a gun before the 'Barackolypse'!"

I asked Cassie to show me her favorite gun in the store. The walls and counters were lined with rifles and handguns, but Cassie headed straight to the back and brought out this $1200 semi-automatic Bushmaster. "I was that little redneck girl who just liked guns," she explained, looking over the huge gun and then handing it to me. Oh geez.

Why have I never touched a gun? Because I'm terrified of them. Everyone talks about media desensitizing kids to violence but I think growing up on Terminator and True Lies has made me possibly more wary of guns: if there's one in the room, it means SOMEONE IS GOING TO DIE. The gun wasn't heavy and it looked like a prop, but I still can't wrap my head around why it's acceptable for someone to walk into a store and buy a Bushmaster any day of the week.

"Can this be like a hunting gun?" I asked. Cassie and the other worker, an older guy named William, laughed. "That's not an animal gun!" said William.
"What's the totally legitimate, non gang-banger reason for owning one of these?" I asked, my finger on the trigger. Cassie shrugged. "There isn't one."

The crew got a kick out of my gun jitters and a minute later I looked up and William was aiming a fancy sniper gun at me, a red laser sight beam dancing over my sweater. "You see that dot on you?!" William laughed. haHA!