Hi.
This is going to be short and sweet. I'm sure at some near future point, I will have more to say here (most likely on other topics than this one), but I'm getting my feet wet and grinding an axe of mine at the same time.
I have read more than once around the web, from different people, that people who even so much as want a gun are mentally ill. This, people, is what's known as an ad hominem attack, and it is the easiest way to get on my bad side. I'm really hoping that I'm explaining something here that you already know very well.
However, if that's the case, and you are still willing to paint any gun owners around you with this brush, know this: I have owned guns. I don't currently, and probably never will again. My mother, of whom I am very proud, is one of the class of the first five female Border Patrol agents, and the oldest woman, at 42, to ever go through the Border Patrol Academy, and because of her work has owned several pistols. My father has owned hunting rifles and shot guns. Many in my family have.
If you can make the statement that "Anyone who owns a gun or wants to is mentally ill," then I must assume you are an ignorant bigot. That really is the only conclusion I can draw from that statement.
Now, if you want to ban all guns, to repeal or alter the second amendment in order to achieve that result, then I am all for having that conversation. I may even be sway-able to your point of view; I am sick of the horrific toll that gun violence is taking in this country, and I am clear that something, perhaps even something drastic, must be done.
But this conversation, as with, frankly, so many other conversations we need to have in this country at this time, does not begin with a sweeping and completely dismissive value judgement against anyone who holds a different view from yours. There is no way forward from that point.
Why do I have to explain this?