Reply #22: Because the Marines instructed me

[razors edge]

how to use the AR properly and it works when it's supposed to. If it were a piece of crap that didn't shoot straight or function properly, I wouldn't have bought it. I don't buy crappy knock off, or even used equipment.

It is as much a collection as a hobby. I collect stamps too, gold plated replicas of United States Stamps from the Postal Commemorative Society. I have about five thousand bucks worth of them, since stamps can be used to get an anthrax laced letter through the mail that the FBI is unable to trace back to the sender, maybe they should be confiscated first don't you think, or at least a background check at the Post Office?

Since the National Guard is off to secure other interests, perhaps us old timers with the proper training on how to use these tools, training on the rules of engagement, training on first aid and protection of civilians in a crisis, become by default the closest thing you have to a state militia, not that I want or would readily take up the job.

When my friends get together to compare and fire, we are not thinking of any type of imaginary confrontational situation as you have described, perhaps it's really your fantasy that is delusional here.

We teach Boy Scouts gun safety, familiarize them with the dangers in a first hand way that no amount of lecturing or regulation can get across, so that they are more likely to not grab a gun from their friend's fathers collection, assume it safe and do the unthinkable in an act of play.

Get a grip, the genie is out of the bottle and that bottle is destroyed. You either master it or live in fear of it, the choice is yours my friend.

We have 60 times the population of Scotland, how do your numbers looks in adjustment for that?