Totally. And everybody thinks they'd be Raylan Givens in a crisis. I wish, but in real life, his life would be hearings and getting virtually bitch-slapped by David Simon anyway, and Raylan is a trained firearms instructor.(If you haven't, check out Simon's blog,"The Audacity of Despair"...this month it has covered such disparate topics as Stand Your Ground, Cronuts, and "Stalin's dead cock")

I wish everyone wanted to be Raylan Givens when he helped Loretta...that really would be a better world.

Andi, I hope you can find something you're comfortable with, but if you don't, remember they are celebrating you, not your shoes.

Tep, I hope you get something soon, including a new job.

Shir, congrats on no more braces!

Pix, you're doing a good thing with the rescue dogs. Hold on to that. I hope you're safely ensconced on the East Coast now.

Congratulations, Maria!

I live around the corner from a gun store. It still startles me every time I notice it. Where I grew up, most people just didn't have guns. Guns were for cops and criminals, or really scared people. Having a gun store just sitting there between an antique store and a Subway just seems weird to me, even after living here for three years. (I've asked my parents, and neither of them has ever handled a gun. I doubt that my grandparents ever did, either, except while in the army.)

Congratulations Maria!

Congrats, Maria! So good to hear that.

Thank you for all of your answers - despite my framing of the matter, my question wasn't political. It's just that it's rare for a rifle here not to be an assault rifle, as hunting is something that no more than few dozens do. I apologize if my question was triggery. I guess I am triggered by this topic more than I thought I'd be. I guess it's the burnout of living in the Middle East, but nothing wears me out and saddens me more than useless killing that could have been prevented.

In better news, finished buying all the things for my birthday picnic night tomorrow (which will be held right after Pride in Jerusalem, where I volunteer every year. Buffistas in J-city are invited, of course). Others will bring other food, but I'm gonna make fancy fruit salad and two kinds of blintzes, one of them with chocolate ganache. Nom.

Jews in America aren't really part of the gun culture. Their ancestors were probably expressly forbidden from owning guns in the old country, and they couldn't hunt, because the meat needed to be handled in a kosher manner.

Andi, I hope you can find something you're comfortable with, but if you don't, remember they are celebrating you, not your shoes.

Thanks, all of you, for the encouragement. I knew you would have my back in my quest for sanity here.

Jews in America aren't really part of the gun culture. Their ancestors were probably expressly forbidden from owning guns in the old country, and they couldn't hunt, because the meat needed to be handled in a kosher manner.

Plus, historically, Jews have been much more likely to live in cities rather than in rural areas. In the early 1900s, there were several different programs that tried to get Jews to move to small towns out west, but none of them were all that successful.