chosen said:
"You stated you served and that your gun protected me. I'd say you served and protected me. The gun really had the smallest role in that protection. If you take the gun away your still there, but if we take you away there is no gun."
We've strayed a bit away from the meat and potatoes of the debate and I still feel you've dodged the issue, but on this point, I certainly cannot argue. I agree wholeheartedly that guns are tools and the person is the real weapon. However, as a carpenter cannot build a house without his hammer or saw, a person without a firearm is frequently ill-equipped to defend themselves against those who would do violence against them. As was said by logic above, a cop, soldier or woman defending herself against violent attack might as well not even be wherever the danger is without their guns, just as a carpenter might as well not show up at the job site without his hammer.
It's true that a person can defend themselves against a knife attack with another knife, or a baseball bat against another baseball bat, etc. But the point of defending one's self is not to fight fairly, but to win--preferably without incurring injury. If you're fighting fair, frankly, your tactics suck. When faced with danger, would you not want your loved ones to have the best possible tools available to defend themselves with? In today's world, the best possible tool is a gun, plain and simple. 300 years ago it was a sword. 300 years in the future, it may be phasers. But for now, guns are the most convenient, easy to use and powerful tools for defense in existence.
In closing, I'm not urging you to own firearms, chosen. Far be it for me to dictate how you live your life. If you don't have any interest, or even don't like guns at all, that's just fine; there's a lot of things I like that others don't, and likewise there's plenty of things other people like that I don't. But I'd never tell anyone else what to like or how to live--and in return, I want the same courtesy. The lesson here is, even though you have a bias against guns, please live and let live. Yes, it's true that the bad guys have guns, but that's all the more reason for the good guys to have them too, because if we don't, only the bad guys will...What a scary thought that is. Even the most ardent peacenik can't argue with that.
Peace through superior firepower.
The vast, vast majority of gun owners are law abiding, contributing members of society. In fact, studies have been done that show that gun owners tend to be more responsible and all-around better members of the community than the average non-gun owning person. Only a very small minority misuse and abuse them, so please, let's forget about those things you yourself called inanimate objects, incapable of action, and focus on the people who abuse them...And let's figure out how to punish the man more appropriately, not the tool.
And if you change your mind someday chosen, and feel like going out and shooting sometime, just fire up a new thread here and give me a holler in the title. I'd be more than happy to let you get some trigger time on all sorts of stuff. The same offer goes to everyone here who has never fired a gun, or who has very limited experience with them, especially women. We fear what we do not understand after all, and one of the greatest civic duties I could ever perform is to help more Americans understand the tools with which freedom was won and has been maintained.
