After a recent debate on Facebook about guns, I told everyone I had enough and was signing off in order to play Fallout 4, a computer game where I could run around a post-apocalyptic Boston shooting mutated zombies with a variety of firearms.

“Aha!” you say. “You’re a hypocrite!”

Well, no. You see, Fallout 4 is fiction. It’s not real.

Weapons in fiction serve a purpose of providing drama, action, adventure. Weapons have featured prominently in my novels, too. They help make a great story. A great fictional story.

That doesn’t mean I think everyone should be running around with one in real life. I know the difference between fiction and reality, you see.

(I’m also against dropping anvils on people’s heads in real life.)

And that’s one of the biggest problems I have when dealing with some of the gun enthusiasts out there: They don’t seem to be able to differentiate between fiction and reality.

In their world, more guns means less violence; people with guns stop mass shootings even when trained police can’t; and gun control doesn’t reduce gun violence.

And that’s all fiction. There’s not the slightest bit of evidence to support any of those beliefs, and plenty to prove otherwise.

So I guess I’m not surprised when some people think I am a hypocrite for hating guns in real life while liking them in fiction — because they can’t tell the difference.