Letters to the Editor
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To have or have not
Weezie...
I am with you and New Deal Democrat in spirit. This government has made me almost paranoid (just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get you) about the erosion of my rights under their fascist regime.
However, the problem seems to be that discussion of gun CONTROL always ends up being an extreme issue that has only two propaganda positions. Anybody, anywhere, anytime can get all the guns they want...or we're going to take away everyone's guns. This should be about regulation. And regulating something as lethal, and as misused as guns are shouldn't be a bad thing. I take your point about who is taking away my freedoms. And my reluctance to give up the right to defend myself is as real as yours.
But when the Bush police, sanctioned by the Bush courts and covered by the Bush Justice Department take me away...what am I going to do...shoot my way out of it?
I live in the Philadelphia area and it seems that almost daily there is a shooting. On the streets. Kids are killed. And I mean toddlers. They are not going to be better served by having the right to tuck a gun in their diapers. And the parents whose right to bear arms might have protected them under the theory of guns-for-protection advocates? They are just as often responsible for shooting deaths when their children discover the loaded weapons of inept, irresponsible, negligent parents who have them lying around the house for "protection".
The government has already been able to tap my phone, pick me up without a warrant and drop me off in a foreign dungeon interminably. It is undermining my retirement, jacking up my prescription drug prices and the cost of all it takes to keep my life moving. It has removed my right to sue those who have negligently harmed me. It advocates polluting the air I breath and denuding the parks from which I derive pleasure. And so much more. In other words, it has systematically stripped away my future and quality of life. Why on earth would I worry that it might keep me from having a gun under my bed when a cluster of thugs breaks down my door while I am watching CNN with a Coke in my hand, instead of my pistol?
I don't know what the answer is. I only know that it lies somewhere between no one can own a gun, and everyone can own a gun. If it's everyone....then justice can be defined as "the last man standing".