Arming Bears

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. -- The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

I don't particularly like guns. Yet, like many people, I'm fascinated by them (and weapons in general).

Further, I don't own a gun. Well, strike that. I own NERF guns (and I think I have a few other toys that fire projectiles) but I don't own a firearm that can discharge a bullet likely to kill anything bigger than a housefly.

Gun Control has been a political hot topic for longer than I've been alive and it's likely to continue to be so long after I'm dead and buried.

I kind of get both sides in the argument.

I get the idea of people wanting a tool for hunting (for folks who live in areas where that's feasible) or for home defense.

I get the idea of people wanting to protect themselves. At the core of it all, the desire to own firearms stems from an inherent fear and distrust of authority, I think.

I find guns distasteful because they're incredibly destructive, especially in the heat of passion. An irrational person can conceivably kill multiple people with relatively compact and simple movements in an incredibly short period of time.

For defending one's self, I can see where that's tactically desirable. On the flipside, one person with a gun can kill a group of people with terrible ease (as events have often shown us).

I find it interesting that all the devout claims of a right to bear arms (weapons) seems almost exclusively applied to firearms. Go to a dozen U.S. cities across the country and you'll find some pretty wild and harsh restrictions on all kinds of weapons: sticks, knives, swords, etc.

Hell, there's parts of Texas that restrict owning a Bowie Knife but don't appear to give a rat's ass about guns at all.

Seems a bit weird to me. I mean, if you're going to take a stance that it's okay to own weapons, seems to me you should open it up to a variety of personal defense weapons.

You support someone owning a rifle or a concealable pistol? Okay, then back the right to wear katana in public and balisong knives in their pockets.

California's got "open carry" ordinances in place allowing you to carry a pistol on your belt openly (with ammo in a separate pouch, for what that's worth) but you're pretty much forbidden to carry any kind of blade longer than three inches or with a double-edge.

Seems an odd distinction to make. Sure, a knife doesn't require ammo but a gun can kill more people efficiently.

And then there's telescoping batons, mace, and all sorts of other ways folks have come up with to fight.

The argument seems to have gone into some really odd directions. A lot of that is a money-thing. The firearm industry in the U.S. is a huge deal and their lobby is very powerful but a lot of that is just cultural as we cling to an ideal of frontiersmen and the Wild West that just isn't the modern world.

Do I support gun control? Absolutely. I don't think private citizens should have weapons that can clean out a room of people in a few seconds.

I think those restrictions should be placed on a higher level with arms manufacturers themselves to better account for where their weapons are sold and how they can be traced.

Do I think guns should be forbidden altogether? I am unconvinced, I suppose. Personally, I'd like to learn basics of gun safety so I'm a little less-freaked by them as a whole. I can see arguments behind private ownership of a pistol, shotgun, or rifle but I could go either way, I guess.

Oh well. It's not like anything's changing anytime soon.