First, good to hear from you, Danny. I always enjoy, even when I disagree, your comments. Do I really believe that NOT everyone should have the right to arm themselves. Yes. There are convicted felons. I do NOT believe they should be able to purchase weapons. There are the mentally unstable that have been evaluated as such, that should NOT have the right to weapons. There are people that even though not convicted of a crime with a firearm, that have shown a definite lean toward violence and have been convicted of lesser charges of violence or threats of violence, that should NOT be allowed to bear arms. We have more firearms and more firearms deaths each year then any country. There is a correlation between our open sale of firearms and the number of deaths they cause each year.
When I speak of intelligence to own weapons, part of it is general intelligence and the other part is the ability to show that you know the weapon that is being purchased and know how to safely handle and store that weapon. Intelligent people do not leave their firearms in an area that children have access to. How many times do we see where a child gets a weapon in their hands and kills or wounds another child. The adult that leaves the weapon available to the child may pay the price of prison, but the damage is already done. Many firearms are accidentally fired and people are killed because of stupidity. Is there a connection between general intelligence and the misuse of firearms. I believe there is. The ability to think and the ability to handle a firearm correctly do both come into play.
The question of our founders giving the right to firearms based only on the point of feeding there families, was somewhat tongue in cheek, Yes they wanted the ability to form a militia, which is stated in the second amendment, but you should remember that in those days we had no central army, they were militias formed, mostly by the wealthy, to fight. The British came to take the weapons because they wanted to stop the revolution, there intent was to disarm the citizens. That I am aware of. However I hate to deflate every one's bubble but comparing us fighting the British, during the revolution to us fighting our own Army today, just does not compare. Remember the British were fighting overseas, far from their supplies and in unfamiliar land.
Danny, I am not and have never advocated for good, law abiding citizens to not be able to have a weapon if they choose. I just happen to believe that we have so many unnecessary killings in our country every year because guns are readily available. There has to be a control to keep more guns out of the criminals hands. 195,000 stolen weapons each year. Honest citizens do not steal them, criminals steal them, but honest citizens make them available to the criminals because they lack the intelligence to secure them and register them.
Lastly the Travon Martin killing. You ask if I believe it was a racially motivated murder. I have to ask you. Do you believe that it was not? I feel George Zimmerman was a police want to be. He saw an opportunity, in his mind, to be a hero. It went terribly wrong. The racial part was the fact that he racial profiled Martin. It is only my opinion, and we may never know the whole truth, that if this were a white man walking down the street, he would not have followed. Zimmerman has racists qualities within him and I believe we all have certain racial qualities in all of us. We all fear anyone or anything that is different then us.
I hope that I have shed some additional light on the subjects. Again I am glad to hear from you and look forward to your, sure to come, rebuttal.
