Owen -
I don't want a neighbor with a bazooka. Or hand-grenade. I'm fine
with well educated gun owners with hand guns and hunting rifles. But
do we really want neighbors with ground-to-air rocket launchers?
I think this is the conditions too much of the third world where we (and
our surrogates) have been meddling are living under. e.g. Palestine,
Afghanistan, Somalia, etc... but that is another question all together.
Cordingly -
>Isn't there a danger of going back to paralysis by analysis... happens
every time (so far). Tell the grieving parents that.
I think this is one of the risks of being a considered individual or
group... and it butts up next to knee jerk reactions. It is actually
*hard* to stay on the fence, in my experience.
All -
I personally would like to see few if any rapid-fire and high-capacity
handguns *or* rifles in the hands of most "civilians" and then a major
downgrade in the hands of the civil law, then in the military. I think
we would have a lot fewer tragic accidents for sure, and probably a few
less tragic events like this most recent one if this were the case.
But that doesn't mean I see a clear path to making that happen nor think
a useful number of people in our culture would agree to those
restrictions voluntarily. Sigh!
I recently received two handguns when my father passed away. I learned
to shoot them when I was young (along with his rifles which went
elsewhere). One is the M1917 Colt .45 revolver my grandfather carried
in WWI and by my father during infrequent periods where his job with the
US Forest Service included a minor law-enforcement aspect. I'm not
that eager to simply melt it down, though I deliberately decline to keep
any ammunition for it. I've made it through my entire adult life
without more than passing contact with handguns and I think I can make
it the rest of the way without aiming or firing one.
My wife wanted me to disassemble it for her to make it into an art
project. For the moment, we have compromised on her using the spare
barrel (the original one, which had been replaced when it sustained some
minor damage) for a project. We'll see what comes next. Perhaps
trigger locks. But that only blunts the overt risk of keeping these two
handguns intact... it doesn't exactly address the larger question of
gun-culture and related violence-culture.
Carry On,
Steve
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