180 degrees

(This blog contains potentially offensive material -- anti-gun, pro-Christ.  If that makes you uncomfortable, please stop reading now.)

To put it bluntly, the Newtown mass shooting changed my political views 180 degrees.  

It woke me up to the extent of gun culture in America, and the lengths to which people will go to protect that culture.  Hearing people justify personal armories, particulary ones that include high-powered weapons with large magazines, has made me doubt their reasons for their other political agendas.  

And that was hard, because I was a Republican.  My Christian friends are Republican.  People that I respect are Republican.

I can not engage in debate with them any longer.  They no longer accept me.  I suspect that some of them doubt my Christianity.  How can I explain that I feel that Christianity is bigger than the right to bear arms?  

I have lost friends, friends that I consider Christians, who I served alongside.  I have my temper with them, and I have been bullying.  I hammered my points home until they removed themselves from me.  I have been ungracious.

But I cannot swallow my opinions on it.  The most I can do, is remove myself from conversations that swerve in a "protect my rights" direction.  

Will that be enough?