For and against Gun!

The argument about guns and the second amendment right to bear arms by individuals has been raging on among my co-workers and myself for sometimes now. My libertarian conservative co-worker absolutely believes in that right and don't shy away from reminding you that "Guns don't kill people, people kill people". The funniest thing is that he doesn't even have a gun but just doesn't think people have to be restricted in their quest to protect themselves. His other defense of gun right comes from the fact that people that legally get guns hardly use it for nefarious activities. Criminals on the other hands go underground to get guns and use guns that are not registered. These kind of guns will be available, he argued, if guns are banned or not. Meaning if you ban guns, you are not banning the illegal guns, you are banning the legal ones. The illegal guns will still be available anyways. The implication of that is that if you don't have a gun you are actually a sitting duck for someones target practise.

My Iranian and Irish-American co-workers have very liberal attitude to guns vis-a-vis "keep guns away from home, street, alley and crevices". Their arguments pointed to the fact that some of the 'underground' guns actually come from the legal guns. How did the Virginia Tech slayer get his gun anyway? He actually went into a gun shop in Virginia and all they had to check was that he didn't have any prior felony charges. They didn't have access to the court ruling that he had to see a shrink because of health record privacy law. In this case, a legal gun was used to commit a massacre.

I found all these argument interesting because both side of the aisle come with different statistics. The ones that compare death from gun to automobile accident every year or the death from gun to Knife attack. Of course, the other side always come with statistics from Places like Australia and UK with essential ban on carrying arms and attendant fewer death from gun. I find some of these arguments very intriguing and I found out that I have a centrist views about all these.

I could understand nobody wants to be in a place where you cannot defend yourself. I am sure a lot of families that live in the rural areas with two or three policemen in a small town do cherish the right to defend their neighbourhood against any marauder. I mean, thinking from what I have seen in Nigeria, a lot of people that had been robbed by Armed robbers in their homes would have fancied their chances to at least give some form of resistance and get their neighbours to do the same if they had that right. How humiliating would it be for a man being helpless when his family is being plundered by some people he would have sent into low beyond if he had the power to do so? But for everything in this country and for every situation in life, freedom and right come with their attendant responsibilities.

As much as I want people to carry guns and defend themselves, so also I don't want a wacko or someone that is fries less of a happy meal go on a shooting spree. I mean how do you know a guy that got his gun with good psychiatric record started degenerating maybe because he develops a drug problem or some underlying problems? There are borderline millions of bi-polar people around that could be homicidal or suicidal when wrongly provoked. I really don't want those running loose with guns.

I think a lot of argument for and against gun in the American public domain are very simplistic and really don't answer a lot of questions or maybe there is really no answer for a lot of questions raised for or against gun. How do you tell a housewife that drives 10 miles in the rural area to groceries not to arm herself or protect herself? In the same vein, how do you keep guns away untrained kids in the inner cities and 'hoods without infringing on the right of the other lawful citizens? I think this is an argument that will go on across generations in this country.

For my co-workers, the one with the Italian heritage will not talk about that subject at all though he goes to the shooting range all the time and his teenage sons can hit a moving object some 100 yards away. My liberal co-worker from the south and the catholic conservative don't want to hear anything about Gun. As for me, I take both sides - I am for and against Gun in the same breathe - John Kerry never wavered, why should I?