Your. elected leaders don’t give a darn what you want or think. They have their own agenda. Folks the Second Amendment is the last of our Constitutional freedoms. Did I say it is time to wake-up?

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“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” … Benjamin Franklin, 1759

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Carl Nemo **==

Too often this issue is expressed in 15 second soundbites on the nightly news – the more outrageous the better for ratings.

It is complicated and that is why we must continue *rational* dialogue. Last week, there was a pretty good hour-long discussion on AC360 where individuals from nearly all points of view had the opportunity to talk in detail about what they would like to see. I learned some things I did not know – and that is always a good thing.

Bottom line, the radicals at both ends of this issue are wrong, IMO. The answer lies somewhere in the middle.

But just because we can’t stop them all doesn’t mean we should not try to stop some of them.

The point is to reduce the number thereof, and reduce the severity thereof when they do occur.

For that, I think the best medicine is the restriction on high-capacity magazines. If you look at the very few cases where an armed bystander actually was effective, it was when the shooter was taking time to reload.

This is also, I believe, elementary practice for military personnel – Get ‘em while they’re reloading. I also entirely fail to see the point of 10+ round magazines in hunting and target shooting. Yep, it’s fun to blow off thirty or more rounds quickly, but your fun does not equate to a civil right. Driving crazily is fun, too.

Not, actually, that they’re really severe anyhow. The risk of death to a typical American schoolchild is still far greater while driving to and from school than to a gunman at school.

So yes, there should be rules about driving. There should be rules about guns. That’s the point of government – making and enforcing rules that help us all to live together and in peace.

J.

First, I own a gun. I was raised in the country, and my dad regularly had to shoot dogs going after our livestock. City people just didn’t get that bringing their city-dogs out here and turning them loose was a recipe for creating a marauding pack. So, everybody learned to shoot safely as soon as we were big enough to hold up the weight of the shotgun.

Next, my mother is bi-polar and/or schizophrenic. She was originally diagnosed with schizophrenia in Nov. 1964, and her diagnosis was updated sometime during the 80′s to bi-polar disorder type-II. She has cycled in and out of various mental instituations every 2-3 years for the last 48 years.

Mom has been 100% deaf in her right ear since Feb. 1983 when she shot herself in the head. Dad thought he’d gotten all the guns and ammunition out of the house, but she found his 22 pistol, and a very old stale bullet. So, that bullet bounced off her skull instead of killing her, but the concussion destroyed her eardrum, and she gets frequent inner ear infections.

Certainly, any rational and humane person would agree that there’s more than enough evidence here to deny my bat-sh!t crazy mother access to guns.

But, what about my father? My parents don’t raise livestock anymore, since all their children are long gone, and the cost of feeding us hasn’t been their responsibility for decades. So, Dad no longer needs a weapon to protect his food source from dog packs.

Complicated…

But wait – there’s more! (as they say in the commercials – grin)

I have a gun. Long story, but I’ve had it for over 30 years since I started living on my own in towns and cities, and someone tried to break into my first apartment in the middle of the night while I was alone.

Yep, nowadays I’m a city-girl. My husband doesn’t like guns, and he’s always been a city-boy with little experience with them, and no interest in learning. Our sons are 20 and 15, and don’t want anything to do with guns either. Older-son has autism, but he’s pretty high-functioning, and is a successful college student with a GPA above 3.1.

When older-son was 9 or 10, Grandpa (my father) gave him a BB gun for Christmas. Our boy asked not to have it at home. It stayed at Grandpa’s house. Grandpa has offered many times to teach both older-son and younger-son to shoot the BB gun. They were never interested, much to Grandpa’s disappointment. To be very clear, here, hubby and I were in favor of Grandpa teaching the boys – because we knew how seriously he would take their safety, and we knew that he’d train them right.

So, here’s the “more” complicated part – is my son’s autism a reason that I shouldn’t have my gun in my house? Is my husband and my sons’ lack of training and experience a good reason for me to get my gun out of their home?

It’s complicated.

But lets keep talking about it, and listening to each other. I agree with the majority that we’re never going to make ourselves and our children perfectly safe from gun (or other forms of) violence. But there has to be things that would make us and them safer… Doesn’t there?

I also said nothing about locking anyone up based on a prediction of their future behavior.

Look at it this way: If police talk a suicidal person out of jumping off a roof, they don’t just leave him there on the roof! In each of the examples I gave, it makes perfect sense (and requires no subjective judgement) to impound the person’s guns until the problem is resolved.

And if your local PD isn’t the agency that executes the order to impound weapons, exactly who should that be? Or is this yet another attempt at obfuscation?