I'm not strongly anti- or pro-gun (at least when it comes to non-assault weapons), so I've found the expected debate post-VT interesting, if a little frustrating. But I've generally been able to read contentions on both sides with a bit of detachment.
But there has been something subconsciously unsettling about some of the claims of pro-gun proponents, particularly those associated with the NRA. I've not been able to put my finger on exactly what it was for me, someone who is generally pro-hunting and can understand the instinctual urge for self-defense. Ted Nugent's commentary on CNN.com this morning cleared that confusion up for me, however, in spades.
http://www.cnn.com/...
Once you remove the immature name-calling, the middle-school English rhetorical flourishes, and and just overall poor argument structure, here's how his argument came across to me:
Average citizens need to be able to carry concealed weapons so they can stop massacres in progress.
Not prevent massacres from happening, mind you, but massacres in progress. Every single one of the mass killers stopped in their tracks by citizens that he mentions were able to kill a few victims before they got taken out. There seems to be a willingness among the gun lobby to accept a few casualties in the pursuit of the right to bear arms. It's okay that Joe Nutjob was able to kill two, three, or more innocent victims, as long as we had a gun to shoot him ourselves.
Sure, the gun lobby likes to say that "if all lawful citizens had guns, then potential killers would think twice about trying to start a rampage." That makes a patently bad assumption: that killers are in their right minds and will carefully weigh the kill-ratio before stepping out to murder (one look at the VTech killer's rantings will dispel you of the idea that he was worried about getting shot himself). Perhaps the NRA knows more about the inside workings of the minds of killers than I do, though.
But even if everyone was armed, potential killers will at least know that they will get to destroy someone. After all, if a killer has a drop on you while you're at Wendy's buying a Frosty, you could be armed to the teeth -- you're still going to get shot.
So, in short, that's what I came away with -- a few gun fatalities here and there is just something we have to live with in our free country.
Sorry, Mr. Nugent, I can't live with that blasé attitude. And I understand that banning guns is not going to eliminate all guns from being in the hands of killers, but in so many cases, including that of the Virginia Tech killer, it would have made much more difficult, if not impossible for him to buy a handgun. That's the kind of country I want to live in -- where it harder for people like that to get handguns and assault weapons in the first place. If sacrificing some part of the right to bear arms, while preserving the right to legally hunt, etc., then I'm comfortable with that.
So, thank you Mr. Nugent; you convinced me.