I have a 9mm and I've had 12 - 20ga shotguns and a couple rifles as well. Now I just have the one. I don't take it with me to NFL or other sporting events. Or bars. When my wife and I go out for an evening at the club or a nice restaurant, the gun is at home. If we stops somewhere on the way to pick up a bottle of wine of gift for our host, I don't take it into the liquor store. So if someone has a gun while we're out, my gun isn't going to protect me. I don't know anyone who carries a gun everywhere they go. So in regards to my friends who own guns, their guns won't protect them either. Not while they're out, anyway. If someone comes into our home, that's a different story. So I have no problem with some level of gun control. This does not mean I want someone to come take my gun away and I'm not extreme enough to think that some kind of regulation and registration will result in that. I had to take a test to prove I could safely handle a car. I had to have my picture taken, provide my address, make sure my vision is okay and all kinds of stuff. No one has taken my car. So I have no problem with all that for a gun. A car is not specifically designed to kill people but a gun is. Yet there are a lot of people who have a BIG problem with some common sense when it comes to guns. Do I think we have a "Right" to take guns to bars? Well, if you get caught in your car after a couple drinks, life gets ugly fast. But I guess it somehow makes sense to a lot of people that we shouldn't interfere with someone's right to operate a loaded gun when hammered. That doesn't make sense to me. Same with church. If you need a gun with you in church, I think you're going to the wrong church. But hey, at least you're not hammered so, if you're anticipating a particularly vicious bake sale, well okay then. I like the laws in Hong Kong. Anyone who has not been convected of a major crime (felony here) can own a gun. Anyone can apply for a concealed weapon permit. Everyone who owns a gun has to register it, get their picture taken and have a ballistics test done (like fingerprinting) on their gun. They also have to pass an exam that shows they know how not to accidentally blow someone's head off and that they are aware of the laws in the city. If a cop finds a gun on you, he can take you in right then and there (assuming it's concealed without permit). Unlike here, gangbangers can get years for carrying a gun with the intent to commit a crime. Being from Detroit and LA (where I was shot twice and stabbed once by bangers as a teen), I think that's a good thing. If you find some guy in a car, downtwon at midnight, with a wig and hat and a .357, it doesn't matter if he's never been convected of a felony before, you know what he's up to. On the other hand, if you find a jeweler with a registered gun in the same place, it makes sense he'd want to have protection. This is all just common sense. I think we would benefit from laws like that. Of course the ACLU would go just a crazy over that as the NRA, so it's a pipe dream. When the Founding Fathers guaranteed this right, we'd just fended off an invasion and there was no such thing as a police force. A gun was absolutely necessary for 2/3 of the country to eat. The Bloods and Crips weren't 30,000 members strong. Different times. I'm not an extremist liberal. I don't thinkw e should "Go British" and eliminate all guns. I think guns are fine. Just like I think cars are fine. And I'm not an extremist in that, I think the ownership and operation of both a car and a gun, should require some common sense regulation and restrictions. I would bet that liberals who disagree with me, will at least understand why I might want to have a gun in my home. And as always, Conserviatives who disagree with me, will be pissed that I don't agree with them on EVERY aspect of this and hurl the usual labels and insults. But perhaps I wrong and the Conservatives will be reasonable and the libbies, extreme and totalitarian. Who know? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
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