re: Firefighter Accidentally Shot In Baton Rouge by N. La Firefighter

The Clinton executive orders?

About the only lasting effect of that is our current (though now instant) background check laws and ballistic fingerprinting.

That's a nice cartoon to explain how I'm sure gun owners feel. And I agree it's a slippery slope. But nobody has taken away your guns, the kinds or the number you're allowed to have unless you're a felon, I believe. So the cake can't represent your guns. And it can't represent your rights as you are still allowed your rights to purchase guns barring a quick background check and registration. So, a more accurate analogy may be that you have to wait a tad bit longer to get your cake, and you have to let the government know which cake you have, in order for it to be traced, God-forbid it was poisoned and used for evil. Nobody complains about having to go to driver's ed and take and pass both a written test and a test of actual skill. So, why so angered over suggestions of more education, training, and testing before being allowed to legally purchase a gun?

Speaking of slippery slopes, where so you think your right to bear arms ends? Should you be able to own a bazooka? A rocket launcher? An anti-aircraft missile? A nuke? Surely, you agree there must be some restrictions, no? Some line? Reasonable people can have reasonable differences on where that line may be, but they must have healthy conversations and put aside their egos and listen to the other side's reasonable opinion and find a reasonable resolution. Easier said than done, obviously.

I think both sides suck, currently. The left is deplorable when they take every opportunity to politicize every public shooting. But the right has to concede that having guns that can fire multiple high impact rounds in a very short amount of time so easily available contributes to the sheer number of deaths in a lot of cases. The retort of "ban knives" and the like when someone is killed by something other than a gun is an intellectually dishonest straw man. Sure, someone hellbent on massacring multiple people can find other ways to do it. But I'd imagine it takes a lot more time, planning, and smarts to build a bomb than running down to Academy Sports. Why not make it harder on them and give the people around them more time potentially prevent it?

And let me be clear--I absolutely believe in the 2nd Amendment. I think it's vital to our security as not only individuals, but as a nation. But the damn language of the thing is where it gets tricky, given it was written over 200 years ago. I'm not even sure where I would draw the line. But Id like to be represented by people who will listen.