The Right to Bear Arms

I hate the bad news. I pretty much hate the news in general. And in the midst of a Republican primary and heading into a November Presidential election? Well, just leave it off.  But I didn't. It was on the other morning in the lounge and so I saw it.

Can someone tell me why we need the right to own hand guns? I've lived in rural and outdoor sporting states enough in my life that I get the rifle. I get the shotgun. I'm not into the hunting thing but, you know, I get it. I get skeet. But hand guns? Or automatic rifles? Hand guns and automatic weapons are designed to kill people. Not deer. Not pheasant. Not to put holes in targets. People. They are designed to put holes in people.

The 2nd Amendment is upheld like it's the principle element of democracy. The right to bear arms. And yet, I can't go out and buy an F-22 Raptor to protect my home and property, even if I had the $150,000,000.00 (yes,150 million dollars per airplane) needed to fly one home from the factory. It's not allowed. And if I had $6 million I still wouldn't be allowed to keep a tank in my driveway either. But I do have the God-given right to go out and buy a semi-automatic pistol to keep on my nightstand. I can keep an automatic rifle in the closet just in case I need to fire off several hundred bullets per minute at something, or someone-- or someones. Praise the Lord and pass the f'ing ammunition!!

A baby asleep on a couch was killed last week in Detroit in a drive-by shooting. A young woman was killed last week in Florida when one man was showing another a gun he had for sale and it accidentally went off-- in church. Death by gunshot-- assault, accidental, suicide-- was estimated at almost 3 every hour in 2007.

We enable this with our tolerance. We enable this with our refusal to mount a campaign in the face of powerful lobbies. We enable this with our television, films, and games that make violence and malignant use of guns routine to the point of being almost invisible. And we payed for it again this past Monday. For the life of me, I cannot understand how we permit this to go on.