Today I signed Gabby Giffords' petition, but I feel like I need to add a little more.
http://campaigns.dailykos.com/...
This is because I agree with Gabby Giffords' goals to end gun violence. However I believe her language was too apologetic towards that all-time American religious idol that we call the gun.
This is what I wrote in the comments box:
The one thing I disagree with Gabby Giffords on in this letter is her statement that "Guns themselves are not the problem. Firearms provide for the exercise of our basic rights, connect us to our most cherished traditions and pastimes, and keep us safe in our homes".
I believe that there is a corrupting influence that having a lethal tool capable of killing large groups of people has on the human psyche. This is why soldiers, police officers and other personel are trained in their use, to prevent needless danger to those who they are trying to serve. I also believe that some types of guns are not intended for hunting, which our forefathers did adequately without all these military type firearms.
These new, mass-killing guns should not be available to the public at all, Second Amendment or no Second Amendment. They have contributed to our toxic political environment and our racial divisions. It doesn't take a gun with a hundred bullets to stop a home invasion or a date rape.
The right to bear arms was given to Americans not to stop the neighborhood strangler, but to prevent invasions of a young nation from the British and, sadly, Native Americans who were forced off their land by our new nation. They also kept African-American slaves in line and prevented uprisings of slaves. I have mixed feelings about the Second Amendment and its origins. Yet I don't believe that overturning the Second Amendment is necessary, because the right to bear arms doesn't mean that any obstacle to acquiring guns is an infringement on the right to bear arms. If all obstacles to acquiring guns were an infringement on the Second Amendment, then guns should be free, should be available to all children and should be allowed to be carried openly on airplanes. That, of course, is absurd!
In short, guns are the problem.