Midnightrider wrote on 07/31/13 at 20:18:30:I could leave here in and be back home in 30 minutes with a gun not registered to me. I've done it.
Why can you do that?...
Could you do that in England?... France?,.. Australia?...
Can you name a country that you admire, or think might be a good place to live,... where you could do that?...
Name any country where you could do that,... and tell me it's a good place to be...
So how is it a good thing here?...
The reason that you can do that here, is because guns are so prevalent....
So,.. we justify our need for guns because of the prevalence of guns, and we make more guns because we need them because there's so many guns...
It all makes sense now...
...the Constitution has been amended more than 20 times...
That wall has holes in it... not a thing to be standing behind...
Especially when the majority is not on your side... and that side has the growing demographics...
There were those Halcyon Days when these issues weren't issues... those days of "Leave it to Beaver", and "Ozzie and Harriot"... but,... what if the Beave came home and told dad, there was a man on the bus with an AK-47?... or Harriot said "Oz, I saw the strangest thing at the market today"...
...and this was during the conservative, McCarthy era...
... but, what conclusion would those episodes have?...
Would watching Beaver be the same, if he rode the bus with a few AK's and AR's on there with him?...
This is not going to create that Utopia...
This not even going to take us back to the days of the Revolution,.. or even the Wild Wild West...
Legendary massacres like the OK corral, and the St, Valentines day massacre don't hold a candle to this modern America...
It does hold a candle to Afghanistan,.. or Iraq...
More guns, equals more guns stolen, more guns purchased by straw men, more guns swapped for a motorcycle,.. more guns in the hands of people that will use them...
I just don't see the solution to be more guns...
...and I'm as guilty as anyone... I have 9 guns...
My buddy's dad had a collection of over 200... guess where they went?... he was burgled...
I don't carry,... mine are mostly 22 plinkers... I have one for home defense...
I'm not going to go out carrying a gun... I'm not going to kill someone that wants to take my wallet. or car, or bike...
If they're in my house, while I'm home, I'll have it for protection...
... and I live 70 miles from the border... drug alley...
If I carry,... I'm not safer,.. I'm in more danger...
I'm a realist... I'm not Dirty Harry, or Bruce Willis....
...bullets don't go around me...
I can't out shoot a cartel... or even a drug gang...
They have more guys,.. and they have my buddies dad's guns...
It is here,.. and it ain't pretty... and it's scary how many bad guys have weapons... ... but, adding to it, won't fix it...
It's a "short term, feel good, solution"...
It's not a fix... it's not where we want to go...
Courage,.. is not in carrying a gun,.. it's in taking the in the bigger picture and saying this has gone too far... this is not the world I want for my children's children... I will not add to this... my car, wallet, bike, even my life, is not worth making this worse...
We need to start having a more intelligent conversation than our representatives....
When we start getting smarter, they will too...
They are only parrots....
Part of the problem is, we've started to parrot them...
JMHO...