Gun (out of) control

Last night's topic at Theology at the Bottleworks was "Gun Control In America." I have a special interest in that because when my cousin was 13 (I was 6), he was accidentally shot at a friend's house. His friend found his dad's loaded gun, didn't think it was loaded, aimed and fired at my cousin. He's been paralyzed ever since and it's turned into nerve damage and all kinds of messy things in the past few years. Nothing ever happened to the dad that left his loaded gun out because there were not any laws against it 20 years ago. I'm not even sure there are laws against it now.

I have never had a desire to own a gun, but I'm not entirely opposed to people that have them, either. I have no problem with people that use them for sport or people that keep one around for protection in, say, the ghetto. Statistically, though, people with a gun in their home are more likely to use it on a family member or friend than a criminal. I would really like to know how many people bought a handgun for self defense and then actually used it for that purpose. My guess is those people don't "need" it as much as they think they do, and those that used it in "self defense" against a family member did so in a fit of rage.

That's not really my issue, though, that's just the reason I personally have no desire for one. If people that have guns are truly careful with them, then fine. America will never get rid of their guns, even though I wish we didn't have them. There should definitely be stricter laws on obtaining and storing them, though, and there should be (harsher?) consequences for people that are careless with them. Did you know you can get a background check for a gun in 3 minutes?! Yeah, so if I want to work with children, it takes 3 or 4 weeks for a background check, but if I have a child and want to add a gun, it takes 3 minutes. I don't even need to know how to use a gun! That bothered me so much last night that I actually spoke up (for the first time in those meetings) and pointed that out.

I guess another reason to get a gun is to protect yourself from the government or, I don't know, the apocalypse? If that makes you feel better, go for it, but I suspect that if the government really wanted to fight us there would be no contest. It wouldn't be the civil war, I doubt they would decide on hand-to-hand combat. In the case of an apocalypse, well...I guess we'll have to wait and see. We've only got a year and some change for that anyway, right?