1.
In the 50's parents and the broader community
raised the children. Now, children are raised by television, and television
does not promote responsible gun use.
2.
I’ll take my chances with a mass shooter over
armed teachers any day.
3.
I’m not against guns, I’m against bad reasoning
and powerful lobbying groups. Okay, I’m afraid of guns too, but I respect that
you feel the need to have one. I respect that it is part of the culture you
grew up in. But the NRA is a group funded by gun manufacturers in order to
increase sales. They’re like the sugar industry pushing their product on people
who don’t really need it. They’re like an insurance agent pushing fear. They’re
like the pharmaceutical lobby that’s looking to have everyone on drugs. The
pharmaceutical industry. There’s one I’d like to see connected to mass
shootings. How many of those people were on prescription meds?
4.
Don’t tell me more guns will lead to less gun
violence. I’ve seen too many war movies to know that’s not true. Don’t tell me
guns are part of a well-balanced breakfast or will make my teeth bright. Just
tell me a gun makes you feel more secure, admit that a gun to you is like a
woogie to a toddler. Admit that you want a gun because you feel afraid. And
what are you afraid of? Unarmed people? No, you’re afraid of people with guns.
Well so are the rest of us. Oh, I know, it’s the bad gun owners that are the
problem, not the good guys. They’re there to protect us. Maybe if the good guys
looked a little more like Pat Boone I’d feel less threatened. But it’s those
Pat Boone looking types that are the ones to flip out in the end, aren’t they?
5.
If criminals can still murder without guns, why
can’t good guys protect us without them?
6.
We both agree that it is not guns but nuts with
guns that are the problem. Explain to me why you think the NRA isn't nuts.
7.
The answer to piranha attacks is more piranhas
in the waters.
8.
The answer to drugs in schools is to give drugs
to teachers.
9.
The problem is that sometimes it’s hard to tell
the difference between the good guy with a gun and the crazy guy with a gun.
For example, which one is Ted Nugent supposed to be? If he’s one of the good
guys with a gun, what do the crazy ones look like? Honestly, you know how it is
when you see a Middle Easterner, right? You don’t know which are part of the
overwhelmingly peaceful majority and which are the crazies. Well that’s how gun
owners look to non-gun owners. If you walk into a grocery store with a gun,
that looks threatening to us, just like someone who dresses differently or has
a different accent appears threatening to you, the difference being that nobody
was ever killed by a Keffiyeh.
10.
I respect your right to gun ownership, I really
do. Now please start acting like you respect my right to not own a gun and not
be shot. I know you feel that the answer to not being shot is to own a gun but
not everyone feels the way you do. Some people just don’t feel the need.
Respect that. Because when it comes to me looking out for myself I feel the
same way you do, I care about myself and my ability to choose what is best for
me than I do what is best for you and what you think is right. And that means
when it comes to my right not to get shot I really don’t care about what the
Constitution says, much less your interpretation of it. You see, the
Declaration Of Independence precedes the Constitution and it says I have a
right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. My right to life is more
important than your right to gun. It predates it by thousands of years. In The
Bible, it was not only immoral to shoot someone, it was impossible. That is how
God made us to be: gunless. Jesus told us that those who live by the sword would
die by the sword. I think that applies to guns as well. Guns are contrary to
God’s will, and it is time to beat them into plowshares.
11.
Even so, I do not begrudge you your guns even
though I don’t use the things. After all, I have a few sins and vices of my own
and I wouldn’t appreciate you trying to take away my right to drink a beer or
two because you don’t imbibe. Of course, there are laws restricting my drinking
and I understand that. I don’t take a beer into the grocery store with me, nor
would I ever take one into a church or a library. Because I’m a responsible
beer drinker just as you are a responsible gun owner.
12.
I watched Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine.
That right there will have half of you totally dismissing anything I have to
say, but hear me out for a moment. I didn’t think it was a great film, felt
that in the end it really didn’t have an answer to the problems of gun
violence. But perhaps that was a strength to it, not having easy answers. In
one part of the movie he asks why Canada and the U.S. seem comparable in gun
laws and ownership and yet the U.S has so much more gun violence. Here is one
possible explanation: the NRA and the influence of money on politics. Show me
an issue where money is spent and I will show you irrational, extremist views
being voiced.
13.
I know tons of normal people with guns. But Ted
Nugent? That would be like NORML getting Ozzie Osbourne to support their cause.
14.
The Second Amendment clearly states that every
property-owning white male has the right to own a flintlock pistol or a muzzle
loading musket.
15.
You don’t need a gun to not get shot, but You do
need a gun to shoot someone else.
16.
Why didn’t our founding fathers insist on my
right not to get shot? Maybe it was just part of the Life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness thing. Maybe it was just assumed that my right not to get
shot was important.
17.
It’s not that I’m more afraid of gun owners than
my government, it’s just that I have more faith in my government to protect me
from being shot than I trust gun owners to protect my other freedoms. Whatever
government that would be formed by militias would be a nightmare, far worse
than what we have now. The government worth having will not come through force
but through non-violent and intelligent means.
18.
When you take up arms to oppose a tyrannical
government, the government will send in robots with bombs to blow your ass up.
They will send drones to take you out. Your guns will not protect you from the
government, they will only serve to divide the public between gun owners and
non-gun owners.
19.
You frighten us non-gun owners. I know you are
absolutely right when you say that people kill people, not guns. But very often
people who kill people do so with guns. I know people can kill people with
knives too, and people openly carrying machetes scare me as well.
20.
I have just one question: how come all the
shooting range targets are black?
21.
I do not fear being murdered by a gun owner. The
odds are pretty slim. What I fear is being pummeled to death by the faulty
arguments of the NRA.
22.
The pro-gun position will always have an
advantage because guns are a product, and there is money to be made by
promoting them. The anti-gun side will have no big money behind them, hence no
big P.R. firms manipulating public opinion on their behalf. Ban the AR-15?
Perish the thought when profits are at stake. I’m not saying they should be banned,
I’m just saying the pro-gun lobby will never be as even-handed as I am. I don’t
have a profit motive, they do. And they have the finances to spread their
message far further than I can.
