So, I am well aware that I have been absent since before 2022 started. The short explanation is that going to school and working is hard. I have set a hard date for my board certification exam (August 15th), and I expect after that things will calm down a little.
Welcome to the Jungle, we've got fun and games.... (h/t: Guns 'n Roses)
There are six guns in my house. I have finally reached the place where I have more guns than adults who can fire them. This was a goal, so score one for me! Have I offended you with that? Here's the thing: my guns haven't shot a single person. Ever. One of them is over 40 years old. Color me crazy, but it might be because no one in my house is planning to use said guns in the commission of a crime, like say, murder. My point is the simple truth: Guns don't kill people, people kill people. I suggest we get to work, as a country, to figure out why people thinking walking into a school and blowing away kids is somehow the thing to do (at least it has been since Columbine). What's changed in the last 30 years, because once upon a time a 12 year old could purchase a rifle in a Sears Catalog, and they weren't blowing up schools. We could also do ourselves a favor by understanding that criminals don't follow laws, so passing more laws most likely won't stop them. Last time I looked, murder was still illegal, but that happens every day. Guns laws exist to restrict the purchase of guns by the people least likely to break the law. I won't be giving up my guns. There are 100 million law-abiding citizens who own guns, and I don't think they are keen on giving up their guns, either. So, come and take them. Really. Let's see how that works out.
But the children, Amy! It's for the kids! Let's add a disclaimer to that statement. It's for the already born children who are wanted. Most people screaming and yelling about gun control also have no problem, whatsoever, with the death of 63 million children since 1973. That death toll is worse than Hitler. It's creeping up on Communism. Using children as a pawn in a political war is disgusting.
There are 19 dead children in Uvalde, where the adults in charge had a series of opportunities to stop this before the mentally deranged 18 year old showed up on school property with a gun. The people in charge, the people gun-control advocates want to control our access to guns, failed on every level. And then, when they did show up, the police, which everyone wanted defunded two years ago, but which now they want to be in sole possession of all guns, stood outside, for over an hour, while a mentally damaged, barely-adult took pot shots at fourth graders.
Now, a good portion of the political class in Washington, stands on the bodies of those children, while attempting to undermine my constitutional right to own a gun. (Side note: I plan on buying an AR-15, and no stupid, fact-missing meme on Facebook is going to guilt me into not owning one.)
The first 10 amendments to the constitution, better known as the Bill of Rights, guarantees American citizens certain rights. The government doesn't grant them. The government is tasked solely with making sure those rights aren't taken away. The phrase "shall not be infringed" is pretty absolute. Unlike all the other constitutional rights we've invented by trying to determine the meaning of this word or that word, this one is clear-cut. And despite our *President yammering on that you couldn't own a cannon when the second amendment was written, the fact is, you could. You could plant a cannon on your front lawn, legally. It's the "free" part of the second amendment that seems to be something the left can't understand. "necessary to the security of a FREE state". This wasn't about the army, this was about citizens having the option to fight against tyranny, even if that tyranny came from their own government. The English King and government wanted to disarm the colonies. The newly created Americans were intimately familiar with how vulnerable that made them. They set out to make sure that never happened again. The militia was any able bodied male over the age of 16, and they didn't have a locked building full of guns for their use. They were expected to own a gun that could be used. Well-regulated merely meant that they knew how to use the guns that they were obligated to buy in order to be a part of the "militia". In the end, our founding fathers set up a system whereby the government would fail in it's duty to "defend and protect the constitution from enemies, both foreign and domestic" if it "infringed" on the rights of American Citizens to own guns.
So, in conclusion, I own guns. Legally. I don't plan on giving them up, because that would be a clear violation of my constitutional rights, which my government is supposed to protect. I own them because I believe they are the best defense against those who wish to do me harm, up to and including my own government. You can try to take them, but you'll have to pry them out of my cold dead hands, and since many of you don't believe in owning guns, I have a feeling, I'll win.
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." ~U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Second Amendment
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