While you make a minor point, guns, their availability to nearly everyone it seems (especially the youth of America), and the extremely easy manner in which they can injures scores of people at on time, make them quite dangerous to innocent people. But keep doing whatever it is you do. Carrying a legal firearm
ermm
has little to do with the massacre in Auburn. It will most likely turn out to be young kids getting their hands on something that should be exceptionally hard to get. What is that you ask????? A weapon of mass destuction. Now then, to the subject of being legally armed. At home I am quite well armed. However, out in public I do not carry a gun. What would I carry it for other than a robbery/car-jacking? That is not really a part of my day-to-day life. Nowadays in the younger crowd (under 33), guns tend to engender a false sense of toughness. They allow people to escalate incidents that would otherwise be left alone or squashed with some sort of common sense, into tragedies (see AU last night). I am not for just anyone walking around with a pistol on their waste. For responsible adults, I have a differing opinion. -- Dialing 911 in case of emergencies is what should be done. Indiscriminate shooting is NOT a good thing. And most Americans it seems are terrible marksmen. Just hitting everybody around. Not safe. At all. Actually scary.
I guess we come from different places. I grew up in ET. My Dad introduced me to shooting, and hunting (to eat) when I was very young. By the age of 12, I had my own .22, which was only taken out in Dad's presence, and with his direct supervision.
Then it was a 20-gauge...a .270 rifle...a 12-gauge...a .38...and finally an old 1911 .45. I was around guns all my life, and I was properly educated and supervised in how to keep, carry, and use them safely.
A military career followed, and then a second career in law enforcement. Guns, obviously, were a central theme. To this day, I keep a couple in the house,and I carry anytime outside the home. Have to, there are still those out there who will try to even the score if the opportunity presents itself.
I pulled the trigger twice. Both times, I had no other viable option. Once was to shoot out a tire of a truck I had chased for miles before I hung it up on my pushbar, and the driver was still trying to get loose, with several of us out on foot around the vehicle. I could have legally shot the driver under the "reasonable fear" standard, but chose to shoot out a tire instead. I don't regret the decision.
The second time is of no significance here. I did what I had to do.
I'm gonna say this, and hush. We all have our opinions on the subject, and they tend to polarize along political affiliations. Getting rid of the guns sounds like a quick fix, until you consider how you plan to take them out of the hands of those who got them illegally to begin with, and/or are banned from possessing a weapon. Rarely did I have a problem with an armed subject who owned and legally possessed the weapon. But it was all too common to find a gun on a convicted felon, or work a call where an illegally acquired gun was used in a crime.
That's the elephant in the room, folks. How do you propose to take the guns away from the criminals?
Figure that one out, and you might have a point.
Time to bury the horse on this one. My heart goes out to the victims at AU. I've had to knock on a door at 2 am, and it sucks.
Go Vols.
