I think that nutcase, if denied guns, would have found some other way of committing mass murder. I don't have any answers, or any cogent arguments either for or against gun control. All I can say is that, from my POV, most gun owners are morons. I've met plenty of gun owners. You are the third I've known to discuss things like classes and practice. You know about safety locks and gun cases. I know people who insist that under the driver's seat or in the nightstand is a perfectly good place to keep a loaded pistol. I've seen my neighbor leave his pistol out on the table, in the easy reach of young children. I have kids bring me bullets and shells regularly, and more than once had kids under 12 tell me how they were allowed to join the men in firing guns from the apartment balconies for New Year's. I had not been two weeeks in my job before a first grader pulled up his shirt to show me his bullet scars. I have had a teenager offer to bring me a gun from the flea market, and I have been confronted by an angry parent with a gun in his jacket. Would better gun control change all that? Probably not much. I don't have any solutions. Just a lot of...undirected anger, I suppose. Do I own a gun? No. Taking classes, keeping in practice, that isn't cheap. But mostly I don't because when the kids ask me why not, I can tell them that, sure, I get scared walking around sometimes. But I won't carry a gun, because "to a hammer, every problem is a nail". Because I want them to think that there might be different answers to a threat. Maybe I'll get shot yet. Maybe I'd be a better role model as an educated gun owner. Maybe. You tell me, because I sure can't figure this mess out.
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Date: 21 Apr 2007 04:28 am (UTC)I don't have any answers, or any cogent arguments either for or against gun control. All I can say is that, from my POV, most gun owners are morons.
I've met plenty of gun owners. You are the third I've known to discuss things like classes and practice. You know about safety locks and gun cases.
I know people who insist that under the driver's seat or in the nightstand is a perfectly good place to keep a loaded pistol. I've seen my neighbor leave his pistol out on the table, in the easy reach of young children. I have kids bring me bullets and shells regularly, and more than once had kids under 12 tell me how they were allowed to join the men in firing guns from the apartment balconies for New Year's. I had not been two weeeks in my job before a first grader pulled up his shirt to show me his bullet scars.
I have had a teenager offer to bring me a gun from the flea market, and I have been confronted by an angry parent with a gun in his jacket.
Would better gun control change all that? Probably not much. I don't have any solutions. Just a lot of...undirected anger, I suppose. Do I own a gun? No. Taking classes, keeping in practice, that isn't cheap. But mostly I don't because when the kids ask me why not, I can tell them that, sure, I get scared walking around sometimes. But I won't carry a gun, because "to a hammer, every problem is a nail". Because I want them to think that there might be different answers to a threat. Maybe I'll get shot yet. Maybe I'd be a better role model as an educated gun owner. Maybe. You tell me, because I sure can't figure this mess out.