Let's talk about guns.
I feel really divided over this topic. I think about the times I leave Laura at home for one or more evenings. If we had a shotgun in the apartment that she knew how to confidently use, it would ease my mind. There's no question that a gun makes Laura more powerful then any man. More powerful then a man with a gun? Perhaps not, but it certainly levels the playing field. We could have a hard and fast rule that if someone opens the front door at night when I'm not home, and they don't identify themselves, and they don't respond to a warning and a shell being racked into the chamber, then shoot as soon as they come into view. This is certainly better then imagining what could possibly happen if that scenario went another way.
But somehow this doesn't seem very "real world" to me. You can't know how you would react to a situation where one might need to pull out a fire arm and start pulling the trigger. I would say that going to a gun range to fire at paper targets can prepare you for using your gun in a real situation just about as much as punching a heavy-bag can prepare you for a street fight. When someone finds themselves in a real situation with real people involved, training largely goes out the window. There are probably a few people who could maintain their composure enough to discharge their fire arm in a publicly dangerous situation (in a 'hold-up' scenario, for instance) without killing innocent people, or at least posing a danger to themselves and others. There's probably only one person I know who carries a gun regularly who I would trust in a situation like that, and he is a war veteran with much experience in real life situations. To say the answer is to arm everyone is naive and dangerous.
I think that people ought to be able to be hobbyists with their guns. People ought to be able to hunt, if they want. I would even go so far as to say that gun ownership, as well as having the ability to hunt for your food, is an American tradition that is worth preserving.
But what about the other thing? What about the shootings? What about the violence? Is it worth it if it costs a stack of dead children? How many innocent children need to be slain before we start to move in some direction? Just some damn direction.
Cause it's getting pretty crazy. The whole world thinks we are crazy. Gun sales actually go UP after a mass shooting because of the paranoia that the government is going to take away all the guns. So when there is a mass shooting, gun companies profit. Isn't this a little disgusting?
This is not one that I have a solution to. I'd say we should probably have tighter regulations on who can buy guns, perhaps none of that gun-show nonsense that's going on right now, maybe make it hard to get high capacity magazines, maybe limit ammo purchases in much the same way that sudafed is regulated. Would it be so hard to do? Imagine if there were pharmaceutical trade shows that were open to the public where people could stock up on sudafed for the manufacture of meth? How fast would that practice be shut down?
I wonder what life would be like if people could just refrain from being assholes long enough for everyone else to feel comfortable enough to not feel the need to carry a fucking gun around everywhere they go. We (human beings) are a very weird thing indeed, so full of contradiction and irony.
I feel really divided over this topic. I think about the times I leave Laura at home for one or more evenings. If we had a shotgun in the apartment that she knew how to confidently use, it would ease my mind. There's no question that a gun makes Laura more powerful then any man. More powerful then a man with a gun? Perhaps not, but it certainly levels the playing field. We could have a hard and fast rule that if someone opens the front door at night when I'm not home, and they don't identify themselves, and they don't respond to a warning and a shell being racked into the chamber, then shoot as soon as they come into view. This is certainly better then imagining what could possibly happen if that scenario went another way.
But somehow this doesn't seem very "real world" to me. You can't know how you would react to a situation where one might need to pull out a fire arm and start pulling the trigger. I would say that going to a gun range to fire at paper targets can prepare you for using your gun in a real situation just about as much as punching a heavy-bag can prepare you for a street fight. When someone finds themselves in a real situation with real people involved, training largely goes out the window. There are probably a few people who could maintain their composure enough to discharge their fire arm in a publicly dangerous situation (in a 'hold-up' scenario, for instance) without killing innocent people, or at least posing a danger to themselves and others. There's probably only one person I know who carries a gun regularly who I would trust in a situation like that, and he is a war veteran with much experience in real life situations. To say the answer is to arm everyone is naive and dangerous.
I think that people ought to be able to be hobbyists with their guns. People ought to be able to hunt, if they want. I would even go so far as to say that gun ownership, as well as having the ability to hunt for your food, is an American tradition that is worth preserving.
But what about the other thing? What about the shootings? What about the violence? Is it worth it if it costs a stack of dead children? How many innocent children need to be slain before we start to move in some direction? Just some damn direction.
Cause it's getting pretty crazy. The whole world thinks we are crazy. Gun sales actually go UP after a mass shooting because of the paranoia that the government is going to take away all the guns. So when there is a mass shooting, gun companies profit. Isn't this a little disgusting?
This is not one that I have a solution to. I'd say we should probably have tighter regulations on who can buy guns, perhaps none of that gun-show nonsense that's going on right now, maybe make it hard to get high capacity magazines, maybe limit ammo purchases in much the same way that sudafed is regulated. Would it be so hard to do? Imagine if there were pharmaceutical trade shows that were open to the public where people could stock up on sudafed for the manufacture of meth? How fast would that practice be shut down?
I wonder what life would be like if people could just refrain from being assholes long enough for everyone else to feel comfortable enough to not feel the need to carry a fucking gun around everywhere they go. We (human beings) are a very weird thing indeed, so full of contradiction and irony.