Smarts

This is my new gun that Santa, a card carrying member of the NRA, brought to me for Christmas.

This weapon is chambered in .44 magnum and is beautiful, loud, and hopefully I'll never need it's last attribute: effective. 

I am not some hardcore gun owner.  I own three pistols (all revolvers), a couple of shotguns and a .22 rifle for controlling the turtle population in my pond which gets out of hand every summer.  I carry a weapon on my person because I work in the most dangerous parts of my hometown all hours of the day and night and in the past have had several uncomfortable incidents.  Nothing that would ever make me jump out and start waving a .44 around simply because this kind of gung ho attitude is exactly what will get you hurt very quickly.

However, I do carry, as it is my right.  And I, like most gun owners in the United States, hope and wish that I never have to fire this weapon in self-defense.  I am perfectly happy to admire the gorgeous design of it and carry it out into the back-40 of my place to blast some inanimate object for fun.  The thought of having to defend myself with a gun is not a pleasant idea, but I do like the fact that I have that ability and that right should the time come.  I pray that it never does.

This is what distances reactionary liberals and liberal politicians (and an occasional Republican) from the clear and calm thinking of conservatism.  Democrats and liberals see guns as killers (remember: guns kill people), but I and others with some modicum of intelligence see guns as peace of mind and peacemakers.

As House Speaker John Boehner intends to reject new gun legislation, even from his own party, the heat  is on in Arizona where gun sales have spiked considerably.  Since we are playing the blame game, whose fault is that?  Blame can be squarely laid at the tender feet of Liberalism.  They are the first to squawk about gobbling up the guns, so naturally people are going to rush out to buy them before it is too late.  Foolish liberals.

Gun ownership is about personal responsibility and personal safety.  I'm sure if one studied the numbers closely enough it would become clear that the large majority of guns owned in the United States in fact (using the failed liberal logic), do not kill people.  Most are safely kept holstered or locked up in the home and our country isn't overrun with a bunch of crazed, swaggering, Dirty Harry, vigilante types out riding around their hometowns looking for someone to shoot. Again, as I mentioned yesterday, no manner of legislation will ever root out every crazy person in the US with access to a gun.  This is fact.  A sad one, but true.

The impossible liberal dream of a kumbaya society of equality and free love is exactly just that, a smokey, hazy, look-at-all-the-pretty-colors dream.  Life is imperfect..  Society is imperfect.  People are imperfect.  There will always be raging maniacs, mental defectives and scads of broken people who are victims of irresponsible behavior and I prefer to be able to protect myself from them with a gun.