Reply #253: I'm a first generation non-gun owner.

[jobycom]

And people in my family have been killed by handguns. All of my family has been gun owners for as long as I can remember. My father, his father, his father's father, my mother and up her family tree, my brothers and sister, my father-in-law and brothers-in-law. I grew up around them, used, married into them, have witnessed some pretty close calls, have had them pointed at me in situations where I wasn't sure I'd come out okay. If you think you've got anything on me as far as exposure to what guns are really like, you're deluded. I've had more friends killed by guns than car accidents and diseases, until you get to about age 60. I've had four friends killed in two separate murder-suicides, a family member (not close, fortunately) committed suicide in front of my sister (who no longer owns guns), and I've lost count of the family and friends killed in "accidental" shootings, although some of those accidents may have been murders or suicides.

Growing up where I did, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, squarely between hunting territory and two military bases, (and now living in Texas) I've been surrounded by guns and gun deaths my whole life. When I was a teenager we used to start every school year by comparing notes on who had been shot to death that summer, and sometimes which of our friends had done the shooting. Once, and only once, one of my friends was saved by a gun, when he shot a man with a chainsaw trying to break into his house--but that was a shotgun, not a handgun, and we never did find out what he had done to piss off the guy with the chainsaw.

Guns empower people, so that they feel invincible, especially younger people. They romance guns, feel that they are safe if you take care with them, create delusions about protecting themselves with guns, or that they will somehow defend themselves against the government (like your comment about the 4th Amendment). People pull out guns to avoid a fist fight, and kill to avoid an ass whoopin'--many even seem to believe that's okay.

So more power to you if you are one of the few who are responsible. So are most of my family. So is my military aunt, and my military FIL, and my military BILs. But most are not, not even close, and the more guns you put out there, the more these things are defended and romanced and glorified, the more people are going to die for no good reason other than that some little boy who has enough years to be considered a man wanted to play with the toys in his favorite Rambo movie.

It's a real stretch to interpret the 2nd as about private gun ownership. Only the SCOTUS team that ruled that all votes don't have to be counted to decide an election could twist it thus. And that's a lot worse than anything Congress is planning to pass on FISA today. You may like it, but then again, you may not when you've got a little more experience in life.