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[davsand]

10. Yes. A tool is about right.

I grew up in a family of gun owners and hunters. We ate what we shot and if you shot it, it was because you planned to eat it. There is a death inherent to any piece of meat and the fact that it comes on a plastic tray, wrapped in plastic, with a mini pad under it doesn't erase that.

We also lived out in a rural area where if you had a varmint messing with your livestock you were gonna wait a LONG time to see animal control. By the time they showed up you probably would have a bunch of dead and dying livestock unless you took care of the issue on your own. I know that a lot of animals kill to eat, but I will tell you from first hand experience that there are some--other than humans--that kill just to do it.

I will also say that it is really easy to sit and talk about guns in the abstract, but if you live someplace where 911 response is probably gonna take at least 30-45 minutes, you begin to be a bit more sympathetic to the idea of gun ownership for home protection. Yeah, none of us are exactly Rambo or any of the other kick ass movie types, but I'm pretty sure that the sound of me racking a shell into a shotgun is probably gonna slow down the guy trying to kick in my front door a whole lot more than me yelling "I've just called 911."

What really gets me is the realization that a lot of "gun crime" is not carried out by folks who have them as a tool or even as a hobby (a la hunters, for example.) A drive by shooting was most likely NOT done with a gun bought legally, nor was it done by anybody with a license to even own a gun. It was done by a criminal that doesn't give two shits about how legal it is to be in possession of that firearm. Similarly, the guy in that movie theater was batshit nuts to do what he did. I really doubt that anybody that would booby trap his own apartment is gonna sit and worry about getting busted for illegal weapons charges. Yes, crazy people do buy guns and yes, it is a problem. Mental ILLNESS is the un-addressed problem. The gun itself did not kill all those people--a man picked it up from where it laid and in his illness HE chose to use it to kill people.

Cars kill people. Smoking kills people. Hell, one guy's wife beat him to death with her bowling ball one night! The element of human choice and human failings seems to be at work in every case.

Sorry. I know that probably is not a widely held view.


Laura