OT: Americans love their guns

[Geoff Gerrietts]

Quoting Greg Krohn (ask at me.com):
> 
> "Geoff Gerrietts" <geoff at gerrietts.net> wrote in message
> news:mailman.1063297012.18608.python-list at python.org...
> > I think that /your freedom/ ends where /my freedom/ begins. Until
> > you can guarantee that your weapon will not be used against me by
> > your family members or the conqueror thereof, your freedoms to
> > shoot what you want as a hobbyist and to exercise catastrophically
> > lethal force in home defense are not compelling arguments.
> 
> What freedom of yours does me owning a gun infringe on? Your right
> not to worry?
> 
> (I've rewritten that 100 times and it still sounds funny
> gramatically. I appologise.)

It's funny when you phrase it that way, which I think is a consequence
of my poor choice of words. Your /owning/ a gun infringes no /rights/.
Its /use/ or /accidental discharge/ in my direction infringes my
rights, equal to yours, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. You simply can't guarantee that your weapon will never
accidentally kill me, nor can you guarantee that it will not be stolen
or borrowed from you and deployed against me. 

Let's ignore for a moment that driving a car has utility beyond its
potential to be deployed as lethal force, and its entertainment value.
To be allowed to do this, you must be licensed. You must carry
insurance that protects others against your catastrophically bad
decisions. Few argue that this requirement is reasonable.

If you purchase a gun, your neighbors are in jeapordy of an accidental
mishandling, or a home invasion gone wrong, resulting in destruction
of their property or possibly their loved ones. You are undoubtedly
not insured against this: hope for their sake the expenses do not
exceed your ability to pay.

To my mind, gun control does not mean /nobody can have a gun/. Gun
control means /gun ownership should be controlled/. I understand that
a good many people do not want the society at large, as reflected by
the government, to be deciding whether they are fit to carry a .45 in
a shoulder rig. Those tend to be the people I don't want to see
carrying a .45 in a shoulder rig, because their ideas about 'freedom'
and 'responsibility' are clearly skewed.

--G.

-- 
Geoff Gerrietts             "There is no fate that cannot be 
<geoff at gerrietts net>     surmounted by scorn." --Albert Camus