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Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Son of a Gun, another tragedy.

I will begin this way. I have owned guns in the past. While I owned guns, I never harmed, nor threatened to harm, anyone with a firearm. Luckily I was never forced to use one in self defense. While I owned those firearms, I was not privy to the fact that a legal gun owner is more likely to end up commiting suicide with that firearm or shooting a friend or family member than a criminal.

I respect thoughtful responsible gun owners in general and responsible hunters specifically. However, I am comfortable to assert that sane gun owners would not care to have their fellow citizens walking around with grenade launchers, military sniper rifles loaded with depleted uranium munitions, etc.. Likewise, I presume that responsible gun owners would be outraged if guns were knowingly sold to people with a violent history and/or severe mental health issues. Therefore we start the conversation with the idea that ones "second amendment rights" are not absolute. My point is, even the most fervent sane gun owner favors some restriction. With that as our starting point, if it comes down to a choice between gun owners "rights" and reasonable legislation that may save the lives of innocent people, my choice is clear.

Furthermore, is it my considered opinion that caring reasonable gun owners should be the ones at the point of this spear. The failure of responsible gun owners to stand for thoughtfully considered regulation would only serve to illustrate to the rabid anti-gun people that they are correct in their harshest assessments.


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Tuesday, December 11, 2012

The best offense is a good defense

 In free nations around the world there is a marketplace of ideas. In this marketplace we are free to say almost anything almost anywhere. This includes saying things that are ignorant or pointless. I've come to see that saying, "I am offended by that", is an example of a pointless statement. Many people are offended by many things as one would expect in a wide and diverse world.

In the marketplace of ideas, one offers thoughts and information in an effort to convince others that certain behaviors and choices are superior. Therefore, saying "I am offended" is pointless because it presumes you have a right not to be offended. You don't and you shouldn't. Saying that one is offended is not more than whining. It presumes to curtail discussion without a proffering of evidence to support an alternate position.

It is my considered opinion that way too many people of every stripe employ this tactic (ie; taking offense as a strategy in what would otherwise reduce to a contest of ideas). However, the group with the most eggregious record is people of faith. It has always been that people of faith (ok, most people of faith) start with the premise that a set of ideas are true and work backward in a continuous effort to justify and rationalize that position. This position seems like a gift, at first. It is quite a wonderful and powerful feeling to be certain how the world came to be where it is and to imagine one knows a priori exactly what is good and what is bad. The problems only creep in after time as one is forced to defend challenges to those positions. Vis-a-Vis the marketplace of ideas. None should be surprised that people in that defensive mode find it easier claim offense than provide a rational defense. I did this for a significant part of my life and am quite familiar with this line of thought. (I advise everyone who is currently feeling offended to go back and read the last sentence again. I can't guarantee it, but your blood pressure may lessen.) To my great good fortune I was introduced to another method where one begins at the true initial position of humans, which is ignorance, and builds from there.