Daniel Lawhorne: Man of Mystery
By Will Dryden
I’ve known Daniel Lawhorne for over a decade now, yet he still manages to surprise me every time I talk to him. It could be a story about how his dad, Professor Craig Lawhorne, who once swore at a CIA officer who woke him up at three in the morning, his in-depth arguments as a gun owner advocating for better gun control, or his assertion that “the Calvinists were right, I was predestined to be a furry”(he would like me to clarify he is not actually a furry). If you thought that being born and raised in Buena Vista would guarantee becoming a boring person, Daniel Lawhorne is living evidence of how wrong you are.
When I first sat down to talk with Dan, we got right down to business: What are his thoughts on Chick-Fil-A?
“I think it’s good, I just don’t think it’s the promised Messiah of fast food that everyone else says it is. I’m a Chick-Fil-A Jew.” As I sat awestruck by the power of this statement, he went for the throat: “Waffle fries are the worst shape for a french fry. It’s hard to dip, and the heat escapes way too quickly.”
For our entire lives, both Dan and I have lived in a state where Chick-Fil-A lines consistently wrapped around the building. Dan’s burning apathy towards what he calls the “pretty firmly whatever” chain is in all honesty, not that surprising (I was just taken off guard by the phrase “Chick-Fil-A-Jew”).
See, no one in the Lawhorne family ever seems to walk around with their head in the clouds. They’re rarely carried by trends of the times, choosing instead to stay grounded to what they know and what’s around them. If you’ve ever taken America and the Enlightenment from Daniel’s father, Professor Craig Lawhorne, you probably could have guessed that.
With a dad like Craig, Dan’s political knowledge should come as no surprise. Lately, that interest has come to intersect with another family tradition; guns. Guns are common in the Lawhorne household, Dan estimates they have at least a few dozen. As a committed libertarian, he believes in the importance of privately owned firearms, “There’s a long history of disarmed populations being taken advantage of by governments. Government should have a fear of repercussions from the people.”
He also agrees that America does have a problem with guns, “There is an issue with shootings in America,that’s not something that any half responsible gun owner is happy to see.” In fact, it would seem that he’s at odds with most fellow proponents of the second amendment, or as he puts it, “People are so fixated on ‘Don’t touch our guns’ that they’re afraid to fix the problem.” When I asked him what he thought could fix the problem, he gave a list of suggestions:
“Banning the sale of certain classes of weapon is ultimately ineffective. . . . It doesn’t effectively keep them out of the hands of criminals. I’m in favor of more thorough background checks and mental health screenings. In schools, I’ve heard some people talk about arming teachers, and I think that’s a terrible idea. Some of my teachers were frail 90-year-olds whose arms would break from the recoil of any gun. What happens when a troubled student knows that a teacher like that has a gun?”
Dan explained that he thinks America is in a pretty good place in terms of gun legality, specifically noting that AR-15s are “not as scary as people make them seem,” reasoning that they were designed in a “shoot to maim” era of the military, rather than the current “shoot to kill” philosophy.
Here’s the thing: even though Dan and I grew up just blocks away for most of our lives, our experiences with guns couldn’t be more different. For him, it was a constant presence in the house, just a fun family hobby. For me, it was the part of scout camp that I never got to do. I’ve fired maybe three non-bb guns in my life. The idea of using them for violence was something distant and detached, just something I heard people talk about on the news. When it came to gun control, I already had my ideas pretty set. But talking to Dan, like always, was a surprise.
I came away with new ideas, new information to incorporate into my worldview. I realized that though we had very different approaches, we both agreed that there is a problem to be solved; there is a better future to be made.
It’s so easy to surround yourself with people who agree with you, there’s a comfort to the predictability. But, like I felt after my conversation with Dan, you need to be surprised more often (it’s good for you).
