What is it about firearms that promotes such heated argument and zealotry?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

I'm not even debating the various well chewed over arguments here, I'm just trying to understand what it is about this topic.

Me: Shot pistols and M-16, range only, while in the military. Have never owned a gun and never intend to. I have no problem with other people owning guns. I don't feel particularly strongly about most gun control issues one way or another really, although it seems to me that requiring licensing of gun owners and registration of weapons owned is a good idea, considering that we as a society regulate automobile driving, distribution of prescription meds, and other potentially dangerous activities.

The main reason I personally am uninterested in having a firearm in my home is because I see its potential as a vehicle for a quick, irreversible suicide or homicide in a fit of depression or an angry argument to far outweigh its benefits as a means of protection. Not to mention the potential for simple accidental injury or death. That's just me.

I personally would be happy to concede many or most gun related political positions to "pro-gun" voters if it means more votes from Republican voters who would be predisposed to vote for Democratic candidates otherwise.

I enjoy violent shooter/war type computer games and have since adolescence, but as a person in real life, I am quite nonviolent.

My friends who own guns seem to all develop a tendency to own more and more of them over time, and become really preoccupied with them. I really don't know whether it's the seductive, potentially life-taking power of the weaponry, or what.

[Fresh_Start]

1. no different than alcohol or smoking

a bunch of people think its a shame that their freedom to fuck up might be impaired to save innocent lives.

[ThomCat]

2. Guns are a cultural fetish.

People invest far too much meaning and importance into them as a symbol.

[kiahzero]

3. People don't want to die.

That's what makes it so heated on both sides.

[babylonsister]

4. Good question and I haven't the slightest really. I knew a 'rabid' rethug/Navy man

who lived just outside of NYC, and had the same emotions as Charleston Heston. :shrug:
I don't see the love, except when people actually use guns to eat the animals they shoot. I think survival warrants the use of guns, but anything else, I'm mystified.

[Rick Myers]

5. The NRA is the problem!

They have the money and will not surrender one inch!!!

I have a handgun, and it does NOT preoccupy me. It is purely defensive, and ammo is not stored anywhere near it.

I don't argue PRO gun anything, I do NOT believe in consealed carry.

Owning a gun is not a POLITICAL issue to me. No one is trying to take away anyones guns.

No gun law could have stopped the horrible assault on VT, a campus I know very well...

In the end, you know the drill: 'guns don't kill people, ASSHOLES kill people.'

[sandnsea]

6. No idea

I don't know any gun owners in real life who are as obsessive as the people online - although somebody must be showing up at NRA conventions. I guess the fear that killing won't solve every problem is too much for some people to handle.

[soothsayer]

7. They're scary, and are used for killing. But until I trust the gov't (can't

really imagine ever doing that with ANY gov't), I support the right to own 'em. I'm afraid of them myself and don't own any, but I'd sure like the option.

[KAZ]

8. It's fear, and a "consent of the governed" type of thing.

At least, this would be my basis, if I were a gun owner. BTW, I agree with your "uninterested" premises. They visualize protection of themselves and their family, by means of a firearm(do ya feel lucky punk). They also have a kind of "Red Dawn" thing going, in that they, and their 45, have chance against a marauding government. Kind of silly, but understandable.

[Rocknrule]

9. Same reason people drive Hummers

Small penises