gun, second amendment, townhall, tea bag, conservative, health care,Let me start by saying this: I like guns. I'm a 100lb, 5'1.5" female, so it's easy to see why: with a gun, I'm bigger and stronger than anyone else. I could make make a 6'8", 400lb man grovel at my feet with a gun.
This isn't anything to be proud of on my part. It's the part of me that hates being afraid, even a little bit, of every man that walks past me on a deserted street. I don't indulge this violent little bit of my psyche. While I have practiced with the smaller calibers of handguns and rifles (note to the weak: a 22 rifle is the easiest thing to shoot. you'd think a handgun would be easier, but with a rifle, you rest the stock on your shoulder instead of absorbing all the kick with your wrists.), I only own a shotgun. I don't keep it loaded. I certainly don't carry it around with me.
I'm not some people, I guess.
Specifically, it is important to understand why people bear firearms at town hall meetings. I’m not sure that everyone is getting the same message. Oh, I think we are: threatening and scary. Is there any other message to be taken from AK-47s?
There is probably not a single message being conveyed by carrying guns to these forums oh, i'd agree there, but i don't think you meant what you wrote. next time, try "there's not one singular message", but one of the prominent ones is that we live in a Constitutional republic in which we have delineated rights and freedoms. free speech wasn't another way to say that? what about your guaranteed right to congregate? not quartering soldiers in your homes? voting- voting sends that message, too. none of the above could result in death would be my point here. What many of the gun-toting protestors are saying, and I know because I have listened to their explanations comma is this: I am asserting my Second Amendment right in order to remind my representatives that they are bound to uphold the Constitution and to defend my rights and my freedom. In short, I am carrying a weapon because it is my right to do so.
so, the only way you feel you can remind your elected representatives of their duties is to threaten them with a gun? don't try to dance around this issue: a person with a gun is threatening. it's the nature of the beast. if you want to remind people of something, you write a letter or call them on the phone, you don't parade around in front of them armed to the teeth unless what you want to remind them of is this: i am dangerous and you should be afraid.
As for "it's my right to do so", it's also your right to stick potato chips up your nose, i bet you don't do that. you can pee on your living room rug, eat your goldfish and sleep in your trashcan. do you do any of that? i didn't think so.
Nobody that I know have has pointed their guns at anyone. Nobody has issued threats. Nobody has fired a weapon. Had anyone done so, we would have been reading about arrests already.
so, if your child was carrying around a knife, and you told them to put that down immediately, and they said, "but i haven't gotten hurt yet", would you say "oh, okay then"? I didn't think so.
carrying a gun to a political event may be your right, that does not make it a good idea. politics is an emotionally charged subject. the debate over health care reform has been heated from the start. adding guns to that mix is introducing the very real possibility of bloody tragedy.
have you ever been angry enough to yell at someone? i have. have you ever been angry enough to punch someone? i have. have you ever been angry enough to throw something at someone? i have. now imagine being in the moment of that absolute rage- with a gun in your hands. that is how people end up dead. fights that would have ended in a black eye or a broken nose at worst become homicides the instant a gun enters the picture.
so, it may be your right to carry an AK-47 into an emotionally charged situation, but that doesn't make it a good idea. and the fact that no one has gotten hurt- yet- doesn't make me any less fearful for the future.
Gun violence in the US (2006):
Homicides: 12,791
Unintentional: 642
61 of those were aged 0-4 years.
In total, in 2006, 30,896 people in the United States died from firearm-related deaths. To put this in perspective, 58,193 Americans were killed in the Vietnam War. The entire war, not one year of it.
