I don’t. And really, what Jason speaks to above you, that’s what I’m going for because, I’ll be honest with you, my interpretation of the second amendment is not kind. There is the “well regulated militia” clause that I think is important, and then there is the “arms” word that itself is important.

Arms, you have a constitutionally protected right to own an arm, it does not specify what kind of arm, and most definitely does not say firearm.

My point is not to be antagonistic, though, it is so you understand where I come from. I don’t like guns, never have, never saw the big deal. I’ve lived in some shitty neighborhoods before in my life, and I’ve stared down the wrong end of a gun at least once, and nothing has convinced me that I want to have anything to do with firearms.

BUT

That’s me. I am who I am. I know many gun enthusiasts who are completely different than me, they own many guns, they collect, hell an old friend of mine used to show off a picture of himself holding to ak-47′s with a big old smile on his face. And I recognize that gun enthusiasts have a right to collect, own and use guns, and I don’t want to infringe upon that.

I have that opinion because I have hobbies and things that I’m passionate about that I probably would go buy a gun if someone threatened to take them away from me. If our Federal government all of a sudden said that I couldn’t write about politics and current events anymore, you bet your ass, I’m mounting up.

Oh, hell yes I would use the second amendment to protect the first.

But I’m getting off topic. The point is that just because I can’t get enthused about guns doesn’t mean that I don’t want to protect the right for other people to own them.

I simply have two concerns I want to address:

-Keeping guns away from criminals

-Making sure that legal gun owners are responsible gun owners.

Now, there’s not a lot you can do for irresponsible behavior other than to punish it, but the point behind the driver’s license idea is to create a system where at least we know that everyone who purchases a gun does so with a certain level of training to make sure they can be responsible gun owners. Things like never leave a gun loaded when not in use, if you have children make sure that your guns are locked up and out of reach, or whatever…

And one thing that responsbile gun owners may not understand is that, this isn’t knowledge that comes naturally, or is passed down from one family to the next. I mean, you want something really scary? The actual idea of me going out and buying a gun. I would probably accidentally use the gun to burn the house down or something.

No, really, I can be that stupid.

So that’s where I’m coming from.

Jason, thank you. You know, I try to be open minded, and I try not to sell myself for something I’m not. If I’m going to disagree with you, I’m going to disagree with you, but the thing that I think a lot of us have gotten used to is that we talk right by each other. Like, you brought up abortion, you know what? I don’t like abortion either, but I’m pro-choice, and I have my reasonings for that, and I have ideas and potential solutions that would probably exist in a middle ground for you and I, but those will have to wait for now as I’ve spent the last twenty minutes on this comment and I have to move on to something else, and give my fingers a break.

Thanks both of you for stopping by and I hope you’ll come be a part of our discussion again.