Smile When You Say That, Pardner

Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
When Guns Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Guns.
You Can Have My Gun When You Pry It From My Cold Dead Fingers.

Know what, folks?  It’s time to chill out.  Last time I checked, any law-abiding citizen can walk into a gun store anywhere and buy a gun.  Or several, except in Virginia, where you can only buy one a month, although there is an effort to repeal this law.  Still, that’s a dozen guns per year, more than you normally want to carry around with you.  Storm troopers are not lying in wait to swoop down and take them away.  Try to relax, especially if your finger is on the trigger.

A post from a friend a couple of days ago made me think I should mention something about gun laws, in spite of the fact that it’s a no-win issue for me.  Because I think that the 2nd amendment does give US citizens the right to own guns, and carry them around for that matter, concealed or not.  And I believe that the reason it is in the Constitution in the first place is that the authors of the document wanted an armed citizenry, both to defend the country and to make sure the government didn’t get too tyrannical.  At the same time, I think that there are reasonable requirements that can be applied that do limit gun ownership, to an extent; I’ve got no problem with gun registration laws, background checks or waiting periods, if applied sensibly and even-handedly (and perhaps with more consistency across state lines).  I don’t think schools or workplaces should be forced either to permit or prohibit possession of guns; that’s a rule the people operating the business or campus should be able to make on their own, to apply to their own grounds.  I don’t think the right to own guns is infinite in scope; some reasonable limits can be applied, even if that is not the intent of the 2nd Amendment.  Because if you want to be a fundamentalist about the intent of the authors of the constitution, all they had in mind was cap and ball pistols and Kentucky long rifles.  And there’s nothing in the 2nd Amendment about ammunition.

So I cleverly manage to satisfy neither side of the gun argument, which at least proves that I can occasionally be a moderate.

I think both sides need to take a deep breath and ease up.  The US is a gun-owning country, and that’s something that is not going to change; and the vast majority of legal gun owners are responsible, decent people who are not planning to launch attacks on anything or anyone.  And on the other hand, there’s really nothing to fear from those who do not favor gun ownership; for one thing, they can’t really get around the 2nd Amendment, and for another. they don’t own any guns, so what’s to be afraid of?  If the state really wanted to take away your guns, they could have done so already.  They’ve got REALLY BIG guns, and a bunch of people who know how to use them.  But they haven’t done it, and for all the ranting and raving of the NRA leadership, they’re not about to, either.

My idea is to just try to muddle along with what we’ve got in for gun laws in Indiana for the moment, and try to back off the gun/anti-gun rhetoric.