Kid suspended for drawing a gun

[Strangler Lewis]

Originally Posted by AllyOops!

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Also, a main point- my Dad did not insist on the guns until a prowler was found on our property. He wanted to make sure that I was protected. I don't feel the need to have one. However, does it make me feel a bit safer knowing it's there? I'd be lying if I said "no".

I, too, grew up with guns, but this is a reason to get an alarm system (or steal someone else's sign), not a gun. I find it odd that in this thread with all this pro-gun criticism of fear, fear, fear and the assumption that all adverse risk of a random Columbine situation must be eliminated, that there's no recognition that the pro-gun mentality is to a large extent about fear, fear, fear and the willingness to declare the pernicious societal consequences of gun worship acceptable and justified by the desire of each individual to protect himself from statistically unlikely random violence.

Now, I recognize that an alarm system is just a way to call in the folks with the guns and that the police only represent a delegation of power that we would be justified in exercising ourselves. Still, somewhere along the line, and perhaps only at the borders of where this issue is debated, gun ownership got unhealthily fetishized from the sad recognition of the need for self-protection to a worship of killing power.

Originally Posted by AllyOops!

[font="Georgia"]Oddly, I also feel unsafe at times knowing it's there.

Are you prepared to use it before it's taken from you and used against you? I saw this video where a fellow robbed a convenience store with a shotgun and set the shotgun down on the counter while he bagged the money that the clerk gave him. The clerk took the shotgun and pointed it at the guy. The guy ran out of the store. Ten seconds later, he came back, hopped the counter and started struggling for the shotgun before deciding to leave again. I guess he thought--to the extent he did think--that the clerk did not seem like the type to shoot him.