Right to Bear Arms.

*Disclaimer:
I know that this is all rambly, and some of it seems to contradict, although I assure it does not. It's my blog though, and I don't usually edit my posts, I just write what I am thinking at the time, so deal.
My little sister is completely freaked out by guns.
Last night my brother brought home a gun..well, he had gotten a new barrel or something, for a gun that my dad had owned for years already. ( I guess we had at least two guns on our property for *years* and I never knew! insane!)
Anyway, she freaked out. At least, she freaked out over the fact that the gun would remain on the property.
Who can blame her really?
She's 16 after all, and what do high school kids know about violence these days but guns? I mean, half of the high schools in America now require you to walk through metal detectors on your way to homeroom. It's not pretty.
My nephew lives with them as well. He is six. My sister (his mother) passed away a little over four years ago now. He spends a lot of time with his dad, who likes to hunt and stuff. Tristan is obsessed with guns.

Now, I am not trying to say that everything about guns is evil. We know, or ought to know, that guns don't kill people, people do. However, I just can't pretend to hide my head in the sand about all the violence and stuff on television these days...and video games? Yeah.
I don't lecture my 30 something friends about playing Halo, because I know that they have already well established belief systems, and I really doubt that they are going to go out and shoot somebody, or play around with guns because "they're cool". However, I don't have the same faith in my six year old nephew.

This day and age he is being raised in is so different even from mine , which wasn't really so very long ago ( I was born in 1976). Every where you look there is sex and violence. Case and point, yesterday I was at my mom's talking to my little sister, and CSI was playing in the background. We are all big Law and Order fans at home, CSI, all that stuff. My mom watches those forensic/court shows. Tristan is in the other room, watching cartoons, but he decides to come for a visit right about the time they are doing one of those close-up-gunshot-to-the-head kinds of scenes.
I just flipped out for a second. This was in the evening, but not late. Maybe around 7? I don't live with small children, so I don't always scrutinze what I watch as carefully as I should, but when I realised that he was watching that, I about came out of my skin. No small child should be seeing that at all. Period.

Kids are so impressionable. Heck, so are we! I mean, just look at how desensitized we've become! Still, it's worse for kids. I don't think that it's bad for Tristan's dad to take him hunting, or for him to teach him how to use a gun. The problem is, I don't think that is measured by safety and value of life. Not because the people around him don't have it, but becuase they don't show it. Everything he sees tells him how cool guns are, how the person with the most victims gets the bonus prize, how the bad guys win. It's a different time than when my grandparents had guns. It worries me for him. Whitney might be freaked out by that gun. She might steer clear of it completely, but what worries me, and assuredly what *really* worries her, is the fact that he does not have the same inclinations. Now, luckily, the gun is not loaded. In fact, there is no ammunition in the house, or anywhere that he could find it. So for now he's safe. but what if once, just once...
Well, I think you get my point.
So, my little sister is freaked out. And for a good reason.
Now for the flip side.

I want to buy a gun.

And I want to know how to use it.

Here's the thing. I don't think that complete ignorance of guns is exactly good either. A healthy fear is okay, but not an uncontrollable one.
I never want to have to shoot anyone. In fact, I am not even sure that I could. At the same time, I would like to be able to show somebody that I mean business if it comes to that. I don't even mean in any kind of situation. I will not carry a gun in my purse. But just look what's happening in New Orleans. What if I found myself in a similar situation?? I am not going to sit there and let some men have a go at a woman, because there is nobody there who can do anything about it. In my emergency preparedness kit, a gun will be included. It may be cliche, but I do agree with the saying; "if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." I am not saying that gun companies should be allowed to sell crazy semi-automatic weapons to the public at large, but if I want to have a shotgun in my garage, then that is my prerogative.

It's naive to think that you can outlaw murder by banning guns. You can't. Bad people do bad things. Good people who have lost all reason do bad things. There is a reason why we have the 2nd amendment.
We need to get back to some good old-fashioned values. Things need to change on a very basic level. Our nation has always had guns. We just weren't always as blood starved. If you raise your children in an environment that is satured with a disregard for life, they will absorb a disregard for life. So sure, have a gun, and teach your kids how to use it, teach them safety, but above all, temper that with regard for life & humanity. Moniter how much crap they get to watch, and yeah, that even includes the news. I am not talking about sheltering them so much that they can't live in the world, simply raise them in an environment not bent on desensitizing their mind into a general love of Nazi experiments!
If you think we're far from that you're wrong as well.
Stem cell research anyone?