A Nation Clinging to Guns

In 1993, when Bill Clinton took office, the country was emerging from a recession. No one was buying cars, Detroit and the housing market were on life support, computer sales were dragging bottom. And what was the most profitable and fastest growing business sector at that time? Firearms.

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

In perspective, there are Second Amendment Democrats as well as the higher profile bumper sticker patriot gun rights zealots. All of whom, for various reasons, believe in the right to keep and bear arms. Obama appears to be one of them, if for no other reason than respect for the document and the wisdoms of those who wrote it. The wording of the Amendment is slightly confusing, but the courts have consistently upheld the interpretation that what is meant is that individual ownership of arms are a requisite to a forming a militia. Most would be more comfortable with some more detail, but the subject seems so fraught with emotion that argument becomes futile, quickly. And the question of to what purpose one would form a militia is sadly equivocal as well. What is difficult to envision is a situation in our future that would crystallize the intent of the Amendment into clarity.

The era in which firearms were a practical necessity is substantially and thankfully over as of the end of the 19th century. They are possessed now for what most honestly amounts to a hybrid of sport, nostalgia and primordial anxiety.

The nation has a long history of love/hate with firearms. In seeming disregard of the Second Amendment, keeping and bearing have been infringed many times and in many ways, most sensibly. Wyatt Earp is said to have cleaned up Dodge City with the aid of a ban on carrying firearms in the city. The Civilian Marksmanship Program was formed in 1916 by Congressional act, to promote firearms skills in the general public in case of the need for their military service. These are exemplar of competing objectives. As a nation we seem to want to defend ourselves but cannot decide on just the right amount of readiness for that defense.

There are a multitude of local ordinances and federal constraints on purchase and possession and millions of retired U.S. Military surplus firearms have been "shredded" to prevent them from reaching the public. The BATF exists because of the public interest that weapons be regulated in some fashion. It does amuse me that the government should have a branch that regulates all my particular vices save one.

But it was the Clinton move to ban assault weapons that got the public excited in 93. People were afraid that Clinton would curtail their access to military style weapons. Staggering numbers of cheap Russian and Chinese military surplus semi-automatic weapons from the dissolving Iron Curtain countries were being dumped into this country in response to a yawning unmet demand. Men, and women, of all degree were three deep at the display case for months, until the Assault Weapons ban was finalized and watered down to prohibit bayonets and limit ammunition capacity.

Fine historical pieces, as you might guess, were not what was selling in 1993. Nor are they what is selling today as millions of Americans fall prey to their nightmares once again. I suspect it is a national frenzy, but for proof I went to a regional gun "show". The local gun dealers are sold out of everything that costs less than $1500 and can be loaded with more than five rounds of ammunition. The local gun show, where you can buy and sell, had thousands in attendance instead of the usual couple of hundred.

Americans seem to be preparing for some undefinable war. This even as an Obama administration, going forward, makes the prospect of real shooting war far less likely than at any time since Eisenhower. The Constitution, which the guarantee of possession of arms is intended to defend, is more likely to be upheld by Obama, the Constitutional Scholar, than by any President in modern history including FDR. If you doubt that, then pay attention to his statements on separation of church and state, abortion and gun rights. There is fine ethical construction in what he has to say on these issues. But, either you take him at his word or you do not. Personally, I have never known a man to do such thorough thinking and then go back on his word. You think it through in order to be able to keep your word. So if some conflict of a nature so immense that it requires American militias to form is not eminent, then for what purpose do these throngs seek the means of self defense?

Why exactly do we seem to need these firearms? A gun will not insure that you do not lose your job to an international merger or international competition. A gun will not get you a raise. A gun will not prevent crime, it will give you a split second opportunity to make a life and death decision about killing or being killed in the progress of a crime. General prosperity prevents crime. A gun will not prescribe to government a program to eliminate crime, corruption, drugs, homelessness, pornography or pedophilia. A gun will not educate your children, save the environment or foster temperance. The only effective weapon for achieving sophisticated political goals is words. If words fail, then there are guns. Use of guns, weapons of any kind, are the definition of chaos. The road to chaos is swift. The road back is nigh impossible.

In theory, the Second Amendment is emblematic of the American compulsion in resistance to tyranny. Resistance to tyranny is a fine sentiment. It has adherents in all shades of the political spectrum. The political act of last resort is to take up arms and throw off your oppressor. It has a romance that rings deep into the heart and soul of a free people. As history clearly shows though, your oppressor is as likely to be on the political right as on the political left. Authoritarianism has no political affiliation. It is simply a product of weak and evil, mostly greedy stupid, men in whom the social and political skill required to govern is lacking.

As I walk through the gun show I hear a seller holding forth to a crowd on why the Democrats will take their guns. Democrats, he says, are afraid of your right to own guns. An onlooker suggests the time worn solution, "they can have my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead, hands."

The THEY that will pry the gun from the cold dead hands appears not too well defined, unless the tyranny that is to be resisted is the tyranny of your neighbors. Democracy does have that aspect. If a majority of one resolves a vote, then they are imposing on the minority but for one. Democratic to 51% can mean tyrannical to 49%. But we are fortunate in that regard. As the gun seller, above, fails to consider, we have the Constitution, Bill of Rights and courts to prevent the unreasonable subjugation of any minority, even of one person. Defending that high scholarship of governing is what the Second Amendment is intend to accomplish, if haphazardly. Imagine the agonies of the Founders over whether or not to canonize a resort to the chaos of war in order to accomplish and maintain a more orderly and just society? That is what they did. And it is arguable whether the time for that guarantee of a last resort has or will soon pass.

Might not the political spectrum be circular instead of a linear dead end left and right? If authoritarian regimes know no political preference, it is rather likely that resistance to authoritarianism is what the extreme right and left have most in common. THEY are some foe of ancestral dread that will subjugate, confine and torture the most dear of our aspirations, liberty. The union, meeting point of this political circle is in chaos. Unfortunate that we cannot so well examine our own fears that we should have to realize them in order to define them.

In the mean time, guns are a symbol, little more, although more dangerous to family and friends than criminals or imagined despots. By far most will sit in the corner of a closet, unused, for the lifetimes of those new buyers just as they have the lifetimes of previous buyers. It is the mercies of competent government that keeps them there.

Comments

[RightWingMarine]

this claim that Obama is more likely to defend our right to own guns more than any other president is laughable. Obama has stated publicly that he believes complete gun bans are Constitutional until the Supreme Court ruled otherwise then Obama changed his position. In 2000 he supported a measure to limit gun purchases to one per month, in 1999 he supported a ban on gun stores within 5 miles of a school or park which would push gun stores almost entirely out of populated areas. He is against affirmative defense, against allowing people that obtain a domestic violence restraining order from being permitted to carry a handgun, is against concealed carry and supports reviving the assualt weapons ban.

Yes people feel the need to get their guns now before Obama bans them because he clearly plans to do so.

If we are to place restrictions on gun ownership because an innocent person may be harmed without these restrictions how long will it be before something else that we have now will be restricted using the same premise?

[lungfish]

I grew up in Montana and lived in Alaska. The preventative nature of firearms in those states is undisputed. The fact that a rural living home owner might be home and have a weapon has turned away countless burgleries. Further, the possibility that someone would step out of a vehicle with a long gun has kept a lot of domestic violence and physical nonsense undercontrol in situations where it could have careened far from rationality.... in my home state of Montana.
Fact is, when I was growing up, there was usually a murder or two a year in the entire state. And usually they were drunken crimes of passion that did not involve firearms. Usually it was a knife or a blugeon of some kind. Given that everyone had firearms and nobody was getting murdered with them there is a plenty of room for pondering why.....
The next thing to go after guns are outlawed will be knives longer than three inches.... and we will be forced to follow the Okinawa model.... read about the Sword Edict of 1588.... and learn how karate and farm implements became the tools of rebellion and dissent....
Keep our guns, raise the standard level of education and include training in ethical behavior.

[1will]

Your logic is that we should not own guns because they won't keep our jobs from being lost in a merger or get us a raise. I guess the most of the rights in the Constitution could be given up based on that argument.

[1010TRAVIS]

DOCTORS

(A) the number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000
(B) accidental deaths caused by physicians per year are 120,000
(C) accidental deaths per physician is 0.171
Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services

GUNS

(A) the number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000 (yes that's 80 million)!
(B) the number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500
(C) the number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .000188
Statistics courtesy of the F.B.I.

So, statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.
Remember, 'Guns don't kill people, doctors do.'

FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.

[MJCole]

Wow, that is a mind boggling abuse of satistics on so many levels I'm hesitant to point out the idocy of your post.

1. You don't see a doctor in good health, ergo likelyhood of death under a doctor's care is far higher than average.
2. These are *accidential* deaths. Total deaths attributed to guns in the US any given year is *huge*. Consider:

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/27/2/214
(ctd...)

[Ohio9]

But the numbers of times citizens use firearms to defend themselves every year is much larger: 108,000 according the National Crime Victimization Survey and up to 2.5 million according to a study by FSU criminologist Gary Kleck.

You can't just look at the bad things that happen with guns. You have to look at the good things too.

I wonder how many armed self defense incidents occur every year in Canada. Probably not that many.

[MJCole]

(...ctd)
In particualr:
[quote]The rate of firearm deaths in the United States (14.24 per 100 000) exceeds that of its economic counterparts (1.76) eightfold and that of UMI [upper-middle-income countries] countries (9.69) by a factor of 1.5. Suicide and homicide contribute equally to total firearm deaths in the US, but most firearm deaths are suicides (71%) in HI [high-income] countries and homicides (72%) in UMI countries.[close quote]

If we assume that there are 300m Americans times 14.24 deaths per 100k = 14.24 *3,000 suggests, about 42k gun related deaths per year in the United States. That makes guns a comperable killer to heart attack http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_/ai_893893277) at about 50K/year or car accident 42~43k/a, http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_deaths_are_caused_by_car_accidents_a_yearr).

I should also point out that in culturely nearly identical Canada we have a death by gun rate that is unaccaptably high by OECD standards of 2.6 deaths by gun per 100,000 per year http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2005/06/28/gun-deaths050628.htmll). Now if you Americans would toughen up your gun laws a little so criminals could not buy guns in the US and smuggle them here we'd probably have signficantly lower gun crime rates.

Go back to school, learn what your Second Amdement really says, don't skim over the *well regulated* milita part!

[Ohio9]

Right, because criminals would be so willing to obey gun laws. Is it really so hard to understand that gun laws only restrict the lawful?

[glockman]

Freedom is sometimes a dangerous thing. Occasionally we die pursuing our freedoms. As harsh as it may sound, I can accept the low number of firearm deaths every year for my rights and my freedoms. It's as simple as that.

[athensguy]

You need to compare the overall murder rates.

[Chavez08]

Gun bans really do work. Now, everyday civilians with emotional disorders and violent tendancies generally don't have access to military weaponry...

.....unless, of course, they're one of the thousands of mercinaries working for Blackwater/other "contractors" who, as of last year, have been "contracted" by Bush to "patrol" our streets during "National Emergencies" to "maintain order" with a contractual license to kill without liability.

...but, hey, don't worry, - these steroid-jacked, highly-trained, war brainwashed young men only murder indiscriminately overseas, they wouldn't do that HERE,....after all.

No, you don't need to arm yourself.

[VikingQuest]

With the name Chavez I figured nothing less.

BTW, where is DC on the murder rate compared to every other city?

They have/had a gun ban and they are one of the worst meaning . . . gun bans don't work.

[Chavez08]

Read my post again, - a little more carefully this time Corky.

[rainbowblue]

I can't believe I'm the first to post this, but the second admendment was created as a way to have an armed citizenry in a nation without a national military. It was for national security. The anti-Federalists abhorded all things large central government, and reisisted the idea of a national military. Instead the founders turned to what worked for the Revolutionary war, state militias. They just broke free of England and needed to make sure they could defend the Union if they tried to attack again. The Wiskey Rebellion is the incident that started the idea that a national army would be better than private state militias.

There are only two reasons to have a gun: you enjoy killing animals (no one needs to kill them for food here, as it would be more expensive than going to the supermarket), or you have a dillusional fantasy that somehow you can prevent a crime with one.

The second amedment is just an anachranistic component of Constitution. Of course I will admit, the best way to reduce the violence is to stop the orgy of violence in cheep movies that creat a culture that loves violence.

[sdskelton03]

preventing crimes with firearms is not a "dillusional fantasy."

Crimes are prevented with firearms across the country on almost a daily basis.

[Chavez08]

The Framers clearly meant for states to be able to protect themselves from the likes of the King and any tyrant wannebes who hijack the govt. against the will of the Republic.

Muskets were high-tech when the Amendment was drawn. In context of the present, I firmly believe the Framers meant for individual states to independantly operate attack helicopters, missiles, access to satellites, thermal imaging, tanks, bunker-busters, etc.

If those who drew the Amendment were alive today and saw the disparity between a strong federal government (which they all warned against) having muskets while the people had only rocks, they'd all throw a tizzy.

That said, - both of the mainstream arguments for and against gun control are bogus, irrelevant.

[athensguy]

My argument against it is that the only authority you have over me to take my gun is the threat of force. You have no moral or legal right to do so.

[timm553]

Oh, I don't know. I can think of more than a few instances where a crime could be prevented by a few well placed rounds from a weapon of the shooters choosing. A home invasion would be one, of note. If it happens to me, I'd like to think that it would be much easier for them to break in than it would be for them to break back out.

I believe in rainbows, but I also believe in self-defense.

[djkrlsn]

Depending on who does the study--private firearms are used to stop 80k to 2.5 million crimes a year and as one fairly dramatic example of firearms stopping crime--in the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles--Koreatown did not burn because the people who lived and worked there used firearms to protect their neighborhood.

[EmilyU]

"There are only two reasons to have a gun"

Incorrect. There are numerous reasons to have a firearm. Competition, recreation, hunting, defense, collecting, and hierlooms are the biggies.

" you have a dillusional fantasy that somehow you can prevent a crime with one."

Happens about 2 million times a year. I don't call that a delusion.

[VikingQuest]

This whole argument comes down to one thing: Activists that believe they know better than the individual.

Topics I can list under there:

Abortion
Guns
Anything "green"
SUVs

There are a bunch of them but why can't people just live their own life and stop worrying about what everyone else is doing or asking for free crap?

[jake106]

Bingo! I believe a good response to this essay would be, "Why do you need to take guns away?"

[VikingQuest]

Because he fall into the activist category that believed they know best just like the abortion people or the environmentalists . . . they forget about freedom.

Registered guns aren't the reason inner-city violence is so high.

[IneptitudePrideB4Fall]

Reply to VikingQuest: Activists enaged in all four topics you listed feel that YOUR decision has an effect outside of affecting just you. For example, "green" affects the water in our shared waterways, our air, our petroleum usage, etc. Decisions that some people feel are private do indeed NOT stop at others' noses.

[athensguy]

In this case, legal private ownership of guns has the least outside affect. Similar to prohibited drug use in the home.

[Sutungpo]

Guns empower a part of the population that up till Reagan BOTH parties had tried to keep in the background. Badly educated, not terribly bright, overwhelmingly poor, belonging to the more cult like Right leaning religious organizations, addicted to an alternative view of history in which the government of their choice had been "betrayed" into loosing military conflicts, paranoid to the point of schizophrenia, unable to think well enough to recognize their own best interests, these folks cling to power. This is the same group who could always say, up untii recently, "at least I'm white!".

It's all about feeling powerful and in control. We're looking at the tragic underbelly of universal sufferage. Jefferson never was able to admit that there is a significant proportion of the population that will not take education if it's offered, preferring to wallow in ignorance and a perceived "old timey religion" and avoid having to decide for themselves. Guns make them feel powerful, relevant, in control. It's as simple as that.

[VikingQuest]

What if I like to hunt?

[timm553]

I'm 55, well educated, law abiding and enjoy an income that puts me in the top 20% of wage earners in the country. I also own firearms. This probably, really screws up your theory about who owns guns, huh?

It's as simple as that.

[djkrlsn]

Also simple as that is that gunowners as group tend to be better educated and have higher incomes than the country at large.

[ThePharoahsApprentice]

This is the most prejudiced group of words ever to be wasted by being put into two paragraphs. Do you own guns? If no, then how do you know how gun owners feel. If yes, don't color us with your tendencies.

You need to come out of your cave and see the world as it is, not as you want it to be. Gun owners are as diverse a group as non-gun owners. I, for one, am an EMT-I and soon to be a paramedic, I am not religious and in fact think religion is the biggest tool used to divide people. I live in a home over 5000sq ft that sits on two acres - so I'm not poor. I'm not white. I voted for Obama. Lastly, I have no inadequacies that leave holes in my being that guns somehow fill up. No power trips, no clinging to power, no paranoia, and I decided everything for myself.

Open your eyes. We don't trade ANY of our rights for a false sense of security, ANY. Keep guns out of the hands of criminals, and keep them out of the hands of unsupervised children - but don't make criminals out of law abiding, law respecting individuals.

[Clavis]

"As the gun seller, above, fails to consider, we have the Constitution, Bill of Rights and courts to prevent the unreasonable subjugation of any minority, even of one person. Defending that high scholarship of governing is what the Second Amendment is intend to accomplish, if haphazardly. "

It's not just the gun seller who fails to consider this true strength of American democracy. Most of the "Obama will take your guns away!" crowd are ignorant of the minority-rules policy of America, and freely say things like, "This is a Christian nation -- (because) 90% of Americans are Christians, so if we want the Pledge of have "God" in it, too bad for the minority!"

These are the same dipsh*ts who think local judges should be popularly elected and rule based upon local mob opinion rather than Constitutional and legal precedent.

May "Bob" Dobbs help us all...

[sdskelton03]

We need firearms because we can not rely solely on the government to protect us.

I take note that all of the mass shootings of recent years took place in "gun free zones. It is a lot harder to kill a mass of people is some of them are armed and fire back.

[VikingQuest]

IMO, I think having a handgun can be a good thing for many people. If someone breaks into your house, call the cops and see how long it takes to get them there.

[sdskelton03]

If someone breaks into my house, I will wait patiently for the cops to come process the dead body in my living room.

[rosiebond007]

You might be the body that they pick up!!

[EmilyU]

48 minutes in this case:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/12/16/grace.coldcase.zimmerman/index.html

[obamagirl1968]

Removing all guns from the WORLD would be more effective than removing nuclear weapons. Having lived in the shoot'em up capitals of Philly, Baltimore and DC, I have seen first hand how guns, illegal or not, have devastated the cities. Even those who claim they need them for hunting are full of stuff because a tiny percentage of people are actually responsible for catching their own food; besides, there are other tools to fulfill that purpose like arrows which were used long before guns were even made. If the public doesn't have guns, then the cops don't need guns which will make everyone safer. Illegal gun sales generate more dirty money than drug sales and financial scams combined. Shame on this country for perverting the Constitution and exporting that messiness to the world....!

[VikingQuest]

"Having lived in the shoot'em up capitals of Philly, Baltimore and DC"

Well there is your problem, stop living in crappy places . . . is Detroit next for you?

Impossible to remove guns, you can make laws to remove them from law abiding citizens but then guess who will have all the guns?

[rosiebond007]

THE ANSWER IS TO HAVE LAWS THAT PROHIBIT SELLING GUNS TO PEOPLE WITH "RECORDS" AND LIMIT THE NUMBER O F GUNS ONE PERSON CAN OWN -
2 IS ENOUGH. COLLECTORS SHULD HAVE A WELL SCRUTINIZED LICENCE.

ABOVE ALL, PROOF SHOULD BE REQUIRED IN ALL CASES AND THERE SHOULD BE EXTENSIVE WAITING PERIODS.

GUN PURCHASES THROUGH THE MAIL SHOULD BE OUTLAWED AND AK47'S, USABLE MILITARY WEAPONS OR SIMILAR SHOULD BE BANNED FOREVER.

WE ARE NOT FORMING ANY MILITIAS THIS YEAR - IF YOU ARE SO INCLINED - JOIN THE ARMY.

THAT'S MY OPINION AND I'M STICKING IT TO YOU - NO, I'M STICKING WITH IT!!!

[EmilyU]

If you could magically snap your fingers and make all firearms disappear, within 5 days people would be making them again.

If you could magically make all firearms dissappear, the violent crime rate in the US would double overnight.

[HisXLNC]

Banning guns will just generate more dirty money. Just like drugs. Back when you could buy a gun out of a catalog and have it shipped to your house, gun trafficking was unheard of.

When you make something illegal, you just make it into a dangerous, lucrative, and highly profitable business.

[athensguy]

I'd say that banning cops would do more good for the country than banning guns.

[Ohio9]

"Why exactly do we seem to need these firearms? A gun will not insure that you do not lose your job to an international merger or international competition. A gun will not get you a raise. A gun will not prevent crime, it will give you a split second opportunity to make a life and death decision about killing or being killed in the progress of a crime. General prosperity prevents crime. A gun will not prescribe to government a program to eliminate crime, corruption, drugs, homelessness, pornography or pedophilia. A gun will not educate your children, save the environment or foster temperance.

So just because a gun won't solve every problem in the world, we shouldn't bother getting them? Buying a car won't solve all those problems either, should we ditch our cars as well?

Nobody is claiming that owning a gun will cure all of our social ills. It is simply a tool, fun for target shooting and hunting, but more importantly, the best self defense tool in the world.

And the notion that guns are "more dangerous to family and friends than criminals or imagined despots." A properly used firearm is not dangerous to anyone but criminals. This is proven by that fact that we have over 108,000 armed self defense incidents per year (National Crime Victimization Survey), but less then 800 yearly accidental firearm deaths (CDC)

[luziannagirl]

And, about guns not saving the environment :

1) Hunters were the original conservationists, and still do fund some of the most important and influential national and international conservation groups. Hunters were one of the first special interest groups to support and achieve federal self-regulation and self-taxation.

2) Public and private hunting preserves and leases, while admittedly often not managed in the most ideally ecological manner, nevertheless provide large, contiguous chunks of undeveloped land important to helping sustain native ecosystems. (Because hunting involves deadly weapons which fire projectiles sometimes great distances, preserves by nature must be very large and contiguous)

3) There is a primordial, spiritual intimacy a hunter shares with his or her prey and its environment, unachievable by any other means. The very molecules of the prey become the molecules of the hunter.

I daresay that without guns and gun-owners, we would have a North American environment impoverished by several degrees.

[Daksian]

It's less about gun ownership than the culture of guns, I think. Here in Canada, gun ownership is comparable in population proportion, yet our gun-related accidents and deaths are far less in proportion. Something about American society seems to keep the people perpetually on edge, forcing them to reach for their guns in a crisis rather than reach for the phone to call the police.

I don't own a gun and never expect to--it' just not something I feel I need to have. I don't begrudge gun owners, whether they're enthusiasts, hunters, military...whatever. I have reasonable trust in my fellow countrymen to be responsible about the use of firearms if they possess them. My brother-in-law is a hunter, and keeps his firearms stored, secured and unloaded, not loaded and under his pillow or in his sock drawer. Neither he, my sister, nor their children have ever had an accident or even a 'near-miss'. If one is a responsible gun owner, there shouldn't be a problem. It seems to me, however, that a culture that exalts a gun opens up the use of such to those who are not responsible, and perhaps that is why America has such a problem with gun-related crime.

[Ohio9]

Daksian, we have nothing against calling the police, but it's important to realize that it's hard to call the police while someone is in the process or raping, robbing, beating, assaulting, or killing you. Furthermore it usually takes the police several minutes to arrive, which is more then enough time for someone to inflict death or serious physical harm.

So the reasons we own guns for self defense isn't for an alternative to calling the police. It's to keep us safe until the cops arrive.

[PJ813]

Has this happened to you or someone you care about? It seems very personal to you, beyond a conceptual issue over ammendment rights.

[Daksian]

As I mentioned, I have nothing against gun ownership, but responsible use and care of a gun must go with it. If you feel you must be capable of defending yourself, get martial arts training. Indeed, this activity REQUIRES control and generally doesn't result in death on either side of a conflict. Nor does the skills gained have the potential for accidental harm--such as if a gun owner forgets 'just once' to put a gun away properly and it falls into the hands of a child.

Guns as a method of self defense is a dangerous choice, but I grant that it is easier than martial arts training. I guess it's simply a matter of priority. I believe that self-defence does not have to come at the expense of general safety.

[athensguy]

I have something against calling the police. The police, at least in my area, are basically the same as officially sanctioned Collection Agents, and they have about the same level of respect for you as a collection agent might. The one exception being the sheriffs in my county. They seem to be a little bit better.

[luzcannon]

Precisely the point Michael Moore made in "Bowling for Columbine". It's not the guns, it's the culture, and Americans are uneducated, happy, violent thugs.

[djkrlsn]

I am a gunowner--and I would say that since I have a BS in biology, I am at least reasonably well educated (and most gunowners I know either have attended college or have degrees so your ignorance is showing)

[EmilyU]

"Here in Canada, gun ownership is comparable in population proportion, yet our gun-related accidents and deaths are far less in proportion. "

Different levels of education, employement, income, population densities, concepts of personal responsibility, ethics, morals, etc.

[luziannagirl]

It all boils down to one's degree of trust and faith in government, doesn't it? Those who have absolute trust in government to always be willing and able to do the right thing, and who don't value guns for sport, feel no need to individually possess firearms. And, they don't understand those who do.

Until something happens to make it all clear.

"I suddenly realized the value of the Second Amendment".

"OMG, THAT's what the Founding Fathers were so concerned about. "

"Gun ownership; I get it now."

"We heard gunfire every night but thank God for the dogs, and I still had Daddy's old pistol and plenty of bullets"

The sort of comments commonly heard from New Orleanians area storm survivors 2005, post-Katrina.