If you found yourself in a strange city late at night and your car broke down in a ‘bad section of town’ and you had to walk alone to get help; how would you feel? No cell phone service is available. Imagine it for a while. Now add the possibility that you had your small child with you. Feeling a little tense yet?
Soon you see a group of teen-age youths approaching you. They do not look like you and are probably not part of the friendly local neighborhood watch. They all cross the street to the same side you are walking……..
I will try to make this brief so play this out in your head for a while. Think of a movie scene unfolding.
If you feel you and the child are in danger, what steps would you take to ensure your safety?
Would you cross to the other side of the street?
If approached and you felt intimidation, would you begin to run?
If you had a knife would you point it at the group?
If you had a hand gun would you point it at the group?
If you had an automatic weapon would you pull it out?
If you had a grenade would you pull the pin?
If you had a device that would destroy the entire block but you would be safe would you use it to save yourselves?
If you had a massive weapon that would level the city but you would not be harmed would you use it?
You are calm now and reading what seems like an unlikely scenario, but the protection and preservation of your life and that of your child is hard wired into each of us. To avoid the possibility (real or imagined) of harm to you and your child are you willing or could you imagine killing or injuring one of the group. How about two of them. What about all of them? In the stress of the moment would you risk injuring passers-by?
In the US we have the ‘right to bear arms’. It is in the constitution plain as day. But when this was written the bow and arrow had been replaced by single-shot guns as the major weapons of the time. Cannons could not be carried or moved by a single person or easily reloaded. Hand guns capable of rapidly firing multiple bullets were not invented until the 19th century.
The authors of the US constitution had no concept of revolvers, semi automatic weapons let alone modern military style assault weapons of today or tomorrow. The thought of RPG’s (Rocket Propelled Grenades) and other military tools were unimaginable at the time.
We are required to take tests and acquire a license to drive a car. More tests, training and licenses to drive a commercial truck or bus. Even more to operate cranes and earth movers.
We need a hunting license to shoot wild game – are told where and when allowed by local laws. We have to get a license to get married. Statistics are gathered and analyzed in fine detail for all of the above.
Funny; when you ask manufacturers and sellers of weapons how to resolve civilian mass shootings and the real threat of criminals with hi-capacity guns – the ONLY answer is to sell more and bigger guns so everyone has one. Hell, they want you to buy a dozen.
We can purchase guns of all sorts including military style assault rifles without question in a number of ways. We do not need a license to hunt or kill humans in this country. The government is prevented by special interest groups from spending any money to gather data on gun usage or sales.
With very few exceptions, no one is trying to take your guns away – No one wants to stop you from defending your family from home intruders – No one wants to stop you from legally hunting wild game – any more than they want to take away your car or pick-up truck by requiring you get a license. But what we are doing now does not make sense.
MidiMike 
There’s alot of common sense in what you said. Before you could reload your musket you would have been subdued.
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It seems we abandon common sense and replace it with politics anytime money gets involved. There is nothing wrong with debate but we should see the simple answers once the conversation is over. Thank you very much for your visit and for your comments. I agree with you completely!
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I always find conversation about the 2nd amendment to be intriguing and I believe most people don’t understand the intention of the 2nd amendment: The point is to give the people the same firepower as the government; it was intended to allow people to take up arms AGAINST the government. The forefathers also would not have been concerned about “hunter’s rights”, because it went without saying that hunting was a fact of life, it wasn’t a hobby or a sport or anything like that; so the idea of having firearms for hunting goes without saying. The 2nd amendment, literally translated and interpreted as the forefathers intended, means that private citizens should be able to build a silo in their backyard to hold a nuclear missile. But that would be preposterous, right?
As to personal defense: Philosophically, bad guys need to be afraid that there are people with firearms that are capable of defending themselves. Intuitively, it makes people 2nd guess their decisions. Pragmatically, it may not matter, because evil is evil and people hell bent on causing destruction will do just that, regardless if you are armed or not. But, at the same time, there seems to be a predominant number of people that don’t fully comprehend the proper use of firearms and those people are the ones that tend to be the loudest advocates of the rights of gun-owners and they don’t understand the concept of self-preservation.
Although, I have major concerns about government oversight on anything, I also have major concerns about the level of violence that occurs on a routine basis in this country. I think we have a clash of cultures that we haven’t seen, we have divisions among political lines that seem to be at an all time high, racial conflicts are being fanned to explosive levels, blatant disregard for humanity is running rampant, and public emotional outbursts are becoming the norm. These issues are not a good combination for a society that allows firearms so freely.
But, I also believe freedom is dangerous.
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You have highlighted the main social dilemmas of our day. There is no easy answer. There are strong opinions. There may be opposing needs on many sides of the same issue. You are correct the Second Amendment is designed to allow citizens the means to overthrow governments that become tyrannical.
In today’s world normal citizens that could match the Firepower of our government is obviously dangerous. This actually allows well-armed extremists and small groups to take over and create their own government.
Other governments have managed to reduce civilian violence while maintaining security. If you run for president let me know!
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BWAHAHAHA! I’m a scandal waiting to happen. I highly doubt anyone would vote for me, but thank you!
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LOL! I know what you mean. I just wish we could replace the money in politics with common sense. It would make life so much easier. A little scandle now and then might be a good trade-off!
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Ya know, Spain doesn’t have a government and it seems to be fairing pretty well…lol
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“Small Government” seems to be the chant around here lately. I am sure it can be done right!! Thanks.
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I see government as a necessary evil, but only insofar as it serves the people and not the other way around.
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In the US we refer to the three branches of government. Each branch of government is supposed to uphold the Constitution. We talk about a government of the People by the people. But unfortunately comma I believe that big business and the influence money has on politics has become the fourth branch of government. This branch does not work for the people. It is self-serving. Thank you so much for your comments!
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Thank you for this one.
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You are more than welcome, and believe me I appreciate your comment as well. Thank you so much!
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Very true!
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Thanks! Just trying to consider the common sense of things LOL
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Well said. Your progression of overkill scenarios gives a personal resonance to a moral issue. There is an arms race and it’s right here.
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Sometimes the extreme does prove the point. It appears in this arms race there are a lot of ‘enemies to battle”. This creates diverse reasons, causes, excuses and rationalizations for the build up.
Thanks for your comment!
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Yep, just like it should be said!
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Funny! I appreciate that!
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🙂
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Should be a mandatory course everyone has to take to own a weapon. Like you have to log 20 hours or something. Theres enough guns circulating to arm every man, woman, and child in the United States. The cat is out of the bag with the guns, might as well have a bunch of people who know how to use them and use them safely.
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Good point about learning to use safely. It could be very good to have each citizen trained in the proper use of firearms. It is really hard to put the cat back in the bag !!!!
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I’m not sure what state you live in, but in all the states I know about, no one can LEGALLY purchase a gun without a firearm owner’s ID, and that is issued only after a careful check against the records of the person’s driver’s license. You cannot carry a gun without specific training and testing, which verifies that you meet the rigid standards required by government — more training and testing than what is needed to drive a car.
Now, if you’re referring to the people who purchase and carry guns illegally, then certainly, what you say applies, but those people are going to keep buying and carrying guns illegally no matter what the law says. They always have done so — even when law-abiding citizens could not buy and carry guns in any state at all.There is no such thing as keeping criminals from crime. They do find a way.
My husband was in law enforcement all of his life — as were many of his best friends. Those men and women all strongly support private citizens with no criminal records owning, carrying, and using guns. They are the ones who are on the street seeing the real crime go down, and they are the ones who put their lives in danger 24/7 battling that crime. They see the law-abiding citizen’s ownership of guns as a protection. And the true statistics in countries and cities where law-abiding citizens have been able to carry guns for a long time show that, not only has crime not increased — but, in fact, in some places has decreased.
I do understand what you’re saying here, but the simple truth is that in every single episode in this nation where some deranged person managed to get a gun and kill a lot of people — at schools, government offices, in restaurants, in theaters, etc — just one law-abiding citizen in the group — with a gun he was trained to use — could have taken that deranged gunman down and saved scores of people’s lives. The only reason the criminals got away with killing so many innocent people was because no innocent person had a gun with which to stop the criminals.
And as far as military grade weapons are concerned, you would be extremely hard-pressed to find very many neighborhoods in which the law-abiding citizens are buying, stocking, and using those kinds of weapons. Only criminal minds make that kind of weaponry a priority, and criminals are not going to obey any laws about purchasing guns.
I know that you are not putting people down because they believe it’s right to own and carry guns, so I’m NOT talking specifically about you here. But I have to say that I get very tired of all the liberals in this country (my own family included) who turn their nose up at the people who believe it’s right to own and carry a gun. They scoff and call the gun owners names, and they work overtime to get rid of all guns owned by private citizens. (Yes, there are a great many people in power who do want to take all the guns out of the hands of private citizens.) And those people “say” that they could not use a gun to kill someone. Talk is cheap. But I guarantee you that every single one of those people — if a gang of deranged men broke into their home and began raping, torturing, and murdering their spouse and children — if they had a gun available — they would pick up that gun and shoot the perpetrators without a second thought. The only difference in them and people like myself is that I’m willing to admit it, and they’re not.
I’m just saying that keeping guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens will not help this country cut down crime — because it will not keep people bent on murder, rape, and every other crime from working until they find a way to carry out what they want to do. Disarming GOOD people just leaves everyone more vulnerable to those who are bad.
Thanks for the opportunity to vent and share my two cents’ worth.
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