Originally Posted by Sawtooth

That is the smartest thing I have read on this thread. I just might make it my new signature.

I'll weigh in here...personally, I like guns....a lot. I like their feel and weight in my hands. I love hunting rifles with their smooth wooden stocks and incredible accuracy. I like the folding tough guy guns with bannana clips that all the firefighter, cops, and paramilitary type guys seem to always have in their collections. I like the hand guns that I can't hit a thing with. My favorite gun is the 50 cal I fired in the military. The awesome and dreadful power of that weapon was thrilling. The men in my family enjoy shooting when we get together and it is a bonding and fun experience. I even used to love to use guns to blow living animals away. Over my short 35 years, however, I have become a kinder, gentler person and no longer find that fun in any way. I have owned a couple of guns but do not own one right now (largely because it would probably cause a divorce due to having small children in the home).

l think the notion that everyone should carry a gun to thwart crime is just dead wrong. Rather, I believe that more crime would occur. There is currently an middle school teacher arguing that she should be allowed to carry a weapon to school to protect herself and her students. Having worked with hot-headed adolescents for years, I think this argument is erroneous. It is based on the assumption that she will be able to maintain possession of that weapon at all times. Kids are quick to anger, quick to move, and most of them are stronger than your average middle age woman. They don't think things through (for that matter, neither do many hot headed commuters). I could easily envision a situation where a kid got angry at someone, knew there was a gun available, took possession of it, and took his short term anger out their target; thereby creating a long term problem. There is a reason that most on-floor jailers and prison gaurds do not carry; they are not fooling themselves about their ability to maintain possession of their weapon on the floor.

On the other hand, I think that those who argue against private gun ownership are fooling themselves about the ease with which those who have criminal tendencies can operate outside of the law to obtain anything they want and behave any way they choose. I don't think a truer statement has ever been uttered than "when guns are outlawed, only the outlaws will have guns". I believe that people need to be free to choose to protect themselves with deadly force if they want to.

I think there is great wisdom in those who keep guns within the reach of little children making sure that those kids are socialized with guns (as ILIKEBIKES has claimed he has done), know how to use them, know how to respect them, and are allowed to use them often enough that they are not driven toward them in curiousity. For most kids, this means a LOT of time with guns, not having been taken to the range one day a year to watch dad shoot so they could see the power of the weapon. Rather, those kids need to be shooting so much that they are almost satiated with the experience and do not seek it on their own.

So, for me....I am a supporter of private gun ownership but I don't think every hot-headed, tough-guy, reserve-deputy-sherriff-wantabe should be carrying at all times.