On Gun Rights

*Edit: Sorry for the false title initally posted. Fixed.Ugh! Work and having to think about moving into a new place has kept me rather busy.

Right now my thoughts have been dwelling on gun laws though.

I though of myself as fairly dissatisfied with both the liberal and conservative viewpoints, but leaning more toward the liberal side. This gun laws issue has brought me back to sitting between the two again.

Lately a lot of folks have been very concerned that President Obama is likely to make some "changes" to our gun rights. This has got people buying up whatever they can as fast as possible. I'm thinking of getting a handgun myself. I believe that denying people the means to defend themselves is atrocious, whether it was swords back in the day or guns today. To tell someone they can't have a weapon to defend themselves goes against our basic human rights since we were cavemen waving clubs around. Obviously some people (criminals) should NOT be allowed to have guns but I mean, does anybody really disagree on that issue? I really hope not.

I like this line from one of my favorite rappers, Talib Kweli where he says "Those who would trade in their freedom for their protection deserve neither."

I still do believe that guns are terrible in general. It seems to me that it would take so much less guts to pull a trigger than it does to stab or slice somebody and in that sense I believe the mere existence of guns contributes to violence but I still don't think that the basic human right to keep a weapon should be taken away.

I really do hope the gun nuts are just being paranoid and that Obama or his administration really doesn't do anything, but really, I am strongly considering getting a gun for myself either way, just in case, because as one Jack Spirko often says, The more people that own them the harder it will be for anybody to take them away. (Obviously not in a sense that we'll shoot whoever tries but that we'll stand up for our rights.)

Anyway, Cheers.