Subscribe2nd Amendment
Comments(6) One of the larger debates in our great nation is that involving gun control. Guns are controversial, although I'm not sure why. Obviously guns are dangerous, but so are many other things in life. I just want to share my point of view on the situation. I am a gun advocate, please let me explain why.
When I got married, my life changed. Not only am I now responsible for taking care of myself, I'm now responsible for my wife's well-being as well. Someday I hope to have children which makes that burden of protection even greater. Before I got married, I hadn't considered my safety so much. Now though, things are different. It's hard to explain, but it's safe to say that I'm much more aware of our well-being than I have even been before.
I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. One of the ways I feel more security is by having firearms. If someone breaks into my home in the middle of the night, I want to have the quickest means to neutralize the threat they are imposing on my family. It's not that I want to kill someone, because I don't. Given the option of the safety of an intruder or my family, I will choose my family above all else. It's that simple. I have no way of knowing their intentions in advance. I have no way of knowing if they are armed. I can only assume the worst and do my damnedest to stop it. I will feel no pity and have no remorse should I be forced to take action on someone threatening the safety of my family.
Having that kind of power also means more responsibility. By having firearms, I now have to educate my family members about their proper and safe use. For those that aren't old enough to understand that, then I must ensure that they are kept out of reach and locked away. My wife is comfortable handling a gun. We've been to the range and she's shot every gun that I've shot.
I generally try to stay out of political conversations. Everyone has an opinion and it's hard to change people's mindset. The 2nd amendment was put in place to allow us to protect ourselves not only from criminals, but from the government itself. An armed nation will help prevent a political party takeover our government by military force. I'm not being some crazy gun toting wack job, I'm just telling you why this is included in the bill of rights.
If you don't personally feel comfortable owning weapons that is fine by me. I don't want to impose my beliefs on others, but I do want the right to protect my family.
Hey Josh,
I agree completely. By the way, guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
Let’s see! You feel safer because if an intruder enters your house you will have a gun.
Guess what?
So will he!
You obviously know nothing about Game Theory.
And how can you defend yourself against your government? They have nukes and cluster munitions (and won’t sign up to international accords to ban them) You’re not allowed have those my friend otherwise they’d call you a terrorist and throw you in jail.
And hey let’s put strict controls on crack cocaine and methamphetamine cos then obviously no one will ever die from them.
As for not imposing your beliefs on others. Is it OK for me to move in next door to you and open up a crack den? I’m guessing it’s fine cos you’re a ‘live and let live’ type of guy.
@Alan
It’s not about feeling safe, it’s about being prepared. I would never feel safe with an intruder in my house. The best way for me to have a chance of protecting my family from someone a gun is to own one myself and know how to use it. I’d like to think that I might have an advantage within my home because I know the layout of my house. Regardless, without being armed myself, I would have no way to defend my family at all.
It’s not about “me” defending myself against the government, it’s about “us” collectively defending ourselves from a bad government. If tyrants were to try to take over the country, the people collectively could impose their own will to keep control over our great nation. We have the right to keep and bear arms as one measure to help prevent such a scenario. Taking away guns from the people would just be one less barrier to taking control of the entire country.
I have no idea how the 2nd amendment even pertains to drugs. Drugs should be controlled as best we can. They ruin people’s lives and breed criminal activity in the process. That type of environment(a “crack den” if you will) doesn’t belong anywhere and certainly not next door to my family. That’s not imposing my beliefs, that is protecting my family’s safety. Once again, something I’m very much concerned about.
Let me just clarify the last two points I made.
I used the subject of drugs as a parallel because they are highly controlled substances (and of course nothing to do with the second amendment)
Even if you personally keep a tight lid on your firearms it doesn’t mean everyone who has access to them will. Having guns in circulation means they are at play in any confrontational situation and there’s only one of you and the 99 times out of a hundred when you are away from your home and get into a situation involving guns whether it be a hold up or a mugging or whatever the best you can hope for is to be close to a hospital.
My last point on the “I’m not imposing my beliefs on you” well no you’re not, but you are imposing your will because I’d like to live in a society where maybe I get a broken arm or ribs if it ever happens (God forbid) that I unwillingly end up in a violent incident. But at least I survive to go home and be a good father to my children and that is the absolute reality of the situation.
Look Josh we are probably never going to agree on this and I’m sorry for coming back at you twice on this on your own blog. Might be better in a public forum.
@Alan
I think what happens is we fail to address where the real problem lies. Why do people feel like they need to escalate to the level of using guns? Why do kids get into drugs? It starts with the breakdown of the family unit. Parents fail to “teach” their kids how to properly handle social issues and responsibility (Literally, my wife was a teacher and had a parent that told her it was the schools responsibility to teach her kid responsibility and values!). This is a much bigger and a more far-reaching issue than gun control. I do agree with you to some degree, as far not everyone who owns a gun a) knows how to use it properly and b) keeps it properly secured. I think folks on both sides of the gun control argument would like to live in a society where in an unfortunate incident of violence, they don’t lose their life (fist fight vs knife/gun fight). Hey what’s next? Gonna have to start taking away sharp pointy objects too.
Interesting points you make. While I don’t necessarily disagree, let me see if I can lay out some of the arguments on the other side, and do so in a respectful, coherent fashion. (I learn much more from discussing with sensible people who disagree with me than with those who share my beliefs… I hope some others feel the same way.)
As I see it, you make two key points: (1) the second amendment preserves the ability to have an armed insurrection in case the government “turns bad” and needs it, and (2) having a gun allows you to feel more able to protect yourself and your family.
The first of these is a actually quite a good argument. I’m fairly sure that the founding fathers had it in mind when they wrote this amendment; after all, they had just engaged in such an armed insurrection. I wonder whether our society has changed enough that this is no longer applicable? Today, a well-armed populace is no defense against a competent modern military (Iraq serves as an example). And perhaps our society has advanced some as well — the idea of a regular, peaceful transition of power based on democratic elections is a new one (introduced, to a significant extent, by the American constitution), but it is an idea that has taken hold to the core of our society. When the Supreme Court “overthrew” an election with the Bush v. Gore decision not to re-count the votes (that’s how some on the left saw it) there was not a single case of armed insurrection anywhere in the country.
The second argument is, I think, less strong. First, I would like to convince you that it is a matter of degrees, not an absolute. I doubt you would defend the right of every citizen to own their own cruise missile or chemical weapons delivery system: clearly there is some level of weapon so drastic that it should be restricted from the populace. Also, if there were some odd sort of brain affliction causing some people to pick up handguns and go on mad killing sprees, and it was killing hundreds of people a day, then you might consider restricting guns simply to save lives!
I think most people would agree with the extreme cases I gave in the previous paragraph. If so, then the real debate is simply over this: should handguns be considered so dangerous that they must be banned? In some parts of the country (like the inner city of Philadelphia, near where I live) there ARE hundreds of murders: more than one per day. In those parts of the country, many people favor greater restrictions on guns. In other parts of the country this behavior is not epidemic; in more rural areas people tend to worry that restrictions on handguns are the first step to banning guns (and hunting) entirely.
I am not arguing to overturn the second amendment, my only point here is that there ARE reasonable arguments on both sides. Have a great Thanksgiving!