First, I’ve been a gun owner from birth. My father already had my first gun picked out for me before I arrived home from the hospital. My father and his 4 brothers were all military. When my age sprouted I took the necessary gun safety course and then began my half century enjoyment of firearms, both for sport target and for hunting and sometimes for defense.
Most of my friends are on the very far right. Most of them carry NRA cards. Most of them collect guns and ammo.
I have a very warped sense of what gun ownership is about because all of these people around me respect the capabilities of guns, so they are responsible and not the types to go into a church and mow down those in prayer. If I ran into some bad folks aimed to do me harm, I’d love to have any of my friends getting my back. It would be a very short exchange and we would be fine.
But I differ highly from most of my friends in what I believe. I do believe in the Constitution and the right to bear arms. But I draw the line when we discuss it as a “right” instead of a “privilege.” Owning firearms is a privilege. But some of my friends think even a serial killer has the right to bear arms. There is no way to be safe as long as our concept is that everyone has the right to buy such vicious tools to kill other people with. Obviously, as we see on the news every night… plenty of whack jobs are using firearms to kill innocent people every day.
If the fight is about “rights” then why wouldn’t driving a vehicle be a “right?” It serves a bigger utility purpose than carrying a gun in the city. But yet we are able to maintain a bit of rational thinking on automobiles so we view them as a privilege… as it should be.
My fear is that the NRA has had it their way for too long. We will reach that point at some time when something crazy happens, like 1000 kids get mowed down by a lunatic that had a careful plan… and then we will all lose ALL our firearm privileges. This country seems to like to do everything in extremes.
I look at that lunatic, disturbed kid in South Carolina and I see someone who is part of the problem and will end up one day making me lose my firearms.
I think we need to crack down on who has the privilege to own. It won’t solve all the problems, but there is no one step fix for this.
