Over at Jigsaw’s Thoughts, Julie asks a really good question – Why do should we own guns?

I own guns for several reasons, and they’re probably familiar to a lot of you.

First and foremost, I own a gun for personal protection.  My local newspaper has a regular mashup where they show crimes by zip code, and my area isn’t immune to the human propensity to rape, rob, and murder.  Homes in my neighborhood have been broken into, people are occasionally robbed in the street, and the stores I frequent are sometimes used as one stop shops for cash and merchendise.  I’ve been in one of them during a robbery, and all I could do was stand there and be a good witness.  That’s not the best feeling I’ve ever had.  So I carry a gun for the same reason I put on a seatbelt when I start the car:  I want to have tools available to help keep me safe, and the gun is the best tool I can easily carry to do that.

My other reason is fun.  Shooting is a blast.  It’s an excuse to get away from the house, concentrate on just one thing at a time, and develop or maintain a skill.  I always compare going to the range to playing golf.  You could be hitting a bucket of balls at the plinking range, trying to get a hole in one on a six inch target at 300 yards, or doing 18 holes on the jungle walk.  It’s the same mindset and the same level of enjoyment, just with explosions.  Now that I’m bringing Girlie Bear into the sport, it’s even more fun. I can show her how I do it, and then sit back and watch her grow as a shooter and as a young lady.

I own guns because I’m a nerd.  I love the mechanics, aesthetics, craftsmanship, history, and stories behind firearms.  There’s something just nerdily fun about taking an old Mosin or a new Remington off a shelf and appreciating the history and technology it took to take an idea, imprint that idea on metal and plastic, and then put it in the palm of my hand.  It’s the same mentality we had as kids when we could quote chapter and verse about the starting line-up of the Minnesota Twins every summer or my kids being able to rattle off all of the stats for their Japanimation trading card characters. 

And finally, I own guns because I can.  I’ve been a lot of places on this mudball where the ownership of weapons was monopolized by government, and few of them were what we’d consider liberal democracies.  I’m not ready to stand on my roof and yell “Wolverines”, but I’ve seen what happens to a society when the government doesn’t have that little voice in its head that says “If you push too hard, it’s 1775 or 1860 all over again.”, and I never want to see that here.

So there you have it.  What are y’all’s thoughts?