My dad has an uzi. It was a gift from my uncle. it stays in a gun club in Wisconsin (Dad lives out here in California). I doubt Dad has seen it in ten years. I think he only fired it once.
I do think guns are fun. I was thrilled when I got to hold (not fire, unfortunately) a thompson sub-machine gun and I must admit I laughed out loud the first time I felt the firing power of a .44 magnum.
Yes, they are a tool that can kill but so can most any other tool. As an extreme example: you wouldn't lock up your aluminum tent poles but many people have electrocuted themselves by accidentally or purposely touching a tent pole to a power line.
I am very biased about guns in households. When I was 14, my 15-year old cousin Benji(the one who has now served 4 terms in Iraq - once in the Gulf War) was playing around with what he thought was an unloaded rifle. We were in his bedroom and he was bragging about how he'd found the hidden key to the rifle cabinet. He pointed the gun at me and started to laugh, and his laughter yanked the gun's aim from my head to just left of my left ear, and just then he pulled the trigger. The bullet whizzed past my left ear, singeing my hair, and up into the wall and then the hallway ceiling.
His dad thought "boys will be boys" and grounded him for one weekend.
I'm amazed at how many gun accident stories start with, "He thought the gun was unloaded."
Can't people learn from the mistakes of others?
Yes, they are a tool that can kill but so can most any other tool. As an extreme example: you wouldn't lock up your aluminum tent poles but many people have electrocuted themselves by accidentally or purposely touching a tent pole to a power line.
But Laga, guns aren't used for shelter the way tent poles are. They are used for killing. That is the reason they're made. Target practice might be fun, but AK-47s are made for killing and nothing else.
He pointed the gun at me and started to laugh, and his laughter yanked the gun's aim from my head to just left of my left ear, and just then he pulled the trigger. The bullet whizzed past my left ear, singeing my hair, and up into the wall and then the hallway ceiling.
Good God. I'm glad you're not dead and stuff.
The thing is, Benj and I were extremely close at the time, and he was pretty upset about it. Well, as upset as any 15-year-old boy can be about almost kiling his cousin.
I'd hope that would be "pretty damn upset".
I'd like to see more uniform/strict licensing and required training, but not elimination.
Wrod.
I was an "absolutely no guns, there's no reason for them" person. The mystique surrounding them sickens me. But it was very important to me to learn how to use them, to remove some of the mystique and in order to be able to use one if the situation ever arose. (This is the part of me that wants to learn a dangerous amount about bombs.) If I'm ever confronted by someone pointing a gun at me, I'm not going to freeze the way I might if I didn't know how to use one. And honesty demands that there is a wolfish part of my brain that is very pleased to have the capacity to be dangerous.
I'd hope that would be "pretty damn upset".
Yeah, I would be horrified.
