What say you? I do ask in earnest even though I admit that I broke my own promise not to engage in conversation with you...
I support gun rights because I see guns as no more than a possession; useful for self-defense, common defense (including from our own government), hunting, and plain ol' recreation. I support gun rights because a loaded firearm sitting on my table (or in my holster) is nothing more than a chunk of metal, incapable of hurting anybody by itself. And I support gun rights because millions upon millions of people since their invention have managed to own and even use them responsibly without hurting anybody that didn't threaten them...or anybody at all.
I also support gun rights because as a realist I realize that, even assuming you could magically make every gun on the planet go away, people would just kill, rape, and rob using knives, baseball bats, chopsticks, those little corn-on-the-cob thingies, or broken beer bottles. So there's little point.
I
don't support them because I'm afraid of criminals. Wanting to keep guns because you're afraid of criminals is only a few steps above wanting to
ban them because you're afraid of criminals.
I'd like to think that even if murder and violent crime were nearly unheard of, and we had been at peace for a century, I'd probably still own guns. At that point you might ask why. Why
not?
I will say that my reason for
carrying a gun might be fear. But I support the
right to choose to do so simply because I see no reason not to, and I generally favor individual rights. I support the right to carry even though I myself
rarely bother to.
Also, what was that last? Some kind of thinly veiled attempt at a pre-emptive ad-hom attack?
Also, there was a point about one issue voters. I don't buy this line of argumentation. The 2A is a critical litmus test of a candidate from any party. If they won't allow for power to rest in the hands of law abiding citizens and not government, then they do not deserve my trust or support.
See, I'd agree that the second amendment is a pretty good litmus test. Then again, I think the first is a pretty good one too. What do you do when each candidate fails one but passes the other?
Or do you have a rational explanation of why the second is a
better litmus test? Because personally while I enjoy having the ability to vote from the rooftops, I'd much rather it not come to that.