On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 10:49:40 -0600, Don Foreman wrote:

Most folks here also think they don't. The vast majority of them (us)
will live their full lives turning out to be right about that. A few
feel it prudent to have what they probably won't need than not to have
what they might conceivably someday need. They each should have the
right to make their own choices. In the U.S., we do.

Yup. Look at it a similar way. Not everyone has the training and
inclination to use a fire extinguisher on an appropriately sized fire.
Even fewer know how to use the public-access defibrillators which are
being installed in schools, malls, and workplaces. Yet, those of us who
are trained and willing to use them for their intended purpose, by

proxy, protect dozens or hundreds of others by doing so.
In VK3 land,
you don't. Your choice. In VK3 land one may not even have an
incandescant lightbulb! It's easy to see why Andrew can only
understand what he is given to understand by the sensational media.

Yup.

"Awash with guns" indeed. What poppycock -- and such persistent
poppycock it seems to be!

The county I'm in almost certainly has more guns than residents. And
our last murder was (googles) 1995, as far as I know. Actually there
might have been one or two since now that I think about it. Doesn't
change the point that guns are a deterrant to violent crime, simply
because so many more good people are armed, than there are bad people.
At least here, where we're not forbidden from defending ourselves from
bad people who will always be armed.

The hotbutton here is the notion of having those who don't think they
need or want firearms wanting to decide that since they don't like
them, nobody should have them.

Yup. Feel free to drive your car without a spare tire if you want, but
don't you DARE tell me I'm not allowed to. My spare tire and tire iron
aren't hurting anyone, even though it's true that some people have been
attacked by others using a tire iron.