My hairdresser, to put it nicely, is a bit of a nutcase. Over the past 18 years, my ability to tune out his banter has improved drastically, but every so often this proves to be an impossible task. In the case of this past December, my brain tuned in to his chatter long enough to catch something rather profound.

He was on a tangent about his mistrust for the United States government and said something to the effect of “when the government tries to take its citizens over, I want my guns so I can defend myself.”

My first instinct was to dismiss this, as I do with most things he says — but as time went on, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was some substance this claim. With the most recent government shutdown and the multitude of politicians partaking in shady dealings behind closed doors, it’s safe to say that mistrust for the government is at an all-time high.

After all, nobody truly knows how powerful our government is or what kinds of weapons they’ve developed without our knowing. With this in mind, is it unreasonable to think that the U.S. government could one day take over its citizens?

I certainly think it is within the realm of possibility, in which case I believe that guns are necessary and vital for our protection against our own government.

With pushes to strengthen gun control laws, it seems that guns will become harder to access in years to come, meaning a potential decline in the number of armed citizens, and an unarmed population, to me, sounds like a flock of sitting ducks, waiting to be taken over.

Although claiming an inevitable government takeover may seem unreasonable, it is exactly what has recently occurred in Venezuela.

In 2012, and nationwide ban on guns was enforced, effectively disarming millions of people, and since then a socialist-dictatorship has risen and taken over the lives of Venezuelans.

These people, now armed with nothing more than stones, make futile attempts to fight off the regime. Almost a decade ago, the thought of having to defend themselves against their own government sounded absurd, which is why they complied to the gun ban established to reduce crime rates.

This has an eerie similarity to our thought processes when considering stricter gun laws within the United States, as almost nobody would consider defense against our own government to be crucial.

Still, many believe that strict gun laws are only being enacted in order to reduce crime rates and would not lead to an all-out ban on guns, to which I say, “A frog thrown in boiling water will jump out, but a frog put in lukewarm water, heated to boiling temperatures, will not notice the temperature change until it’s too late.”

While the idea of a complete gun ban sounds ridiculous now, the gradual enactment of laws to prevent gun ownership may make us more susceptible to accepting a complete ban on guns in the future.

There is no easier way to take over a population than to take away their means of defense, and it is crucial to protect our right to defend ourselves — because without it, we are nothing more than sitting ducks.