To the LR,

There's nothing wrong with liking guns, despite the way some bigoted anti-gun types would try to make you feel.

Hating guns is not a matter of left and right. There are many proud liberals, (such as myself) who own guns just as there are many conservatives who hate guns.

Owning a gun is a matter of personal choice, just like having an abortion, who you marry (whether that person is of the same or opposite sex), whether or not you smoke pot, join a union or any of the other issues of free choice that us liberals support.

Don't let anyone make you feel small, inferior or stupid for owning or wanting to own a gun.

That said, I congratulate you for looking inside yourself to decide whether it is the best thing for you to own a gun. It is a big decision and a big responsibility and not one to enter into lightly.

The fact that you are thinking so much about it shows me that you will be a responsible owner should you follow your freedom of choice and decide to acquire a gun. Or not acquire a gun.

The problem with gun laws is not that they don't work. It's that they make the situation worse.

Why else is it that all the most violent cities are located in states with the strictest gun laws? I've lived and traveled all over the country.

I've heard more gunfire in New York, Boston and Oakland, Ca. than I ever did in living in Florida, a state with relatively lenient gun laws.

Every bit of crime statistics I've ever read confirms my own observations.

If you really want to do something about situations like what happened in Va., let's focus on mental health care and why people who really need the help don't get it.

The problem is that legislators wrongly assume that if you own a gun, that you are a potential mass murderer.

As a law-abiding, responsible gun owner, I can't begin to say how offended I am. Don't worry, though, I won't go "postal." That's only a bigoted stereotype about gun owners.

No, like any intelligent, civilized person, I'll simply debate the issue on its merits.

Rape obviously should be a crime because someone is harmed. Same goes for murder and robbery.

My owning a gun HARMS NO ONE! Until and unless I use that gun in a manner that harms or threatens another person, it's no one's goddamn business whether I own one.

This mentality that we must disarm all gun owners, by force if need be, is the same mentality that got us into that war in Iraq, only on a smaller scale.

Bill Maher has the right idea.

The Democrats in congress and nearly all their presidential offerings from my lifetime (I'm 42) are PUSSIES!!!

Let me say it again. THEY'RE PUSSIES!!!

That's why they keep getting their asses handed to them by morons like Reagan and both Bushes. I keep waiting for a new Harry Truman or FDR, and I keep getting Carters, Mondales, Dukakises, Gores and Kerrys.

Reagan and Bush, Sr. should have been impeached over Iran-Contra! The Whitewater Witch-hunt would never have gotten to the point it did if only the Dems in congress would have stood up and called it for what it was.

Kerry bent over and took it up the ass from Bush, Jr. without a fight over the election returns.

Don't get me started on Gore. Did he even try to win that race?

And what about the Democrats who voted for that war in Iraq? Don't give me any shit that they were fooled by Bush and (as Hillary Clinton said) would have voted different if they knew the truth.

I got kicked out of three high schools and was a "C" student all through college, but even I knew that Bush was full of shit. How such well-educated people like Clinton, Kerry and Edwards can say they were fooled doesn't ring true to me.

I honestly believe that it is not the views, but the complete wussie-ness of the Democratic party and especially its presidential choices that turns people off of that party.

As for me, I've given up on waiting for them to grow some balls and fight. This country's fucked! I'm already looking at rural land so I can wait out the coming storm that's going to make the Civil War and the Great Depression look like a Sunday in the park.

But the sad part of it is, it wouldn't have happened if the Democrats had stuck to their ideals and fought like hell for them.

Thank you for this great article. It shows me one more reason why I work out at home.

In the mid-1980's, I was partial to heavy metal music for working out. Trouble was, I was working out at the UC Berkeley's new state-of-the-art facility which played shitty top-40 music.

To make matters worse, the assholes who managed the gym wouldn't allow people to wear Walkmans so they didn't have to listen to that shit.

Several years later, I trained at a gym at a college here in Florida. I had to throw down with a steroid jockey who insisted on changing the music to top-40 over the objections of everyone else in the place.

Turned out, he wasn't even a student, so the cops arrested him after I punched his lights out.

I got sick of the music situation (and other gym politics) and decided to buy what I needed for my home.

Today, I workout with no music. I got into the habit from one of my martial art instructors who stressed the importance of putting your focus on whatever you're doing right at that moment, whether working out or writing a letter to Salon.com.

I find I have the best workouts and I'm stronger and healthier than everyone else I know who works out.

You can keep your yuppie health clubs. Give me my own carport gym/dojo.