From: ksm@abb-sc.abb-sc.com (Ashley)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: the US elections...
Date: 11 Nov 92 22:17:19 GMT




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On reasons for owning guns: 


>>They are to PROTECT us FROM the government.
> 
>I agree that it was written with the intent to allow a civilian population
>to arm against a tyranny, but we've long since passed the point where this
>is possible.

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>>And the people reading this group in particular should consider this. It is
>>far from being a remote possibility that the government WILL come after us.
>>
>>Arguments about the things that deranged crazies do just doesn't cut it.
> 
>Well, you're pretty misled if you think you or any number of your friends
>can take on the US government in a gunfight. 

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>IMHO, the only reasons for owning a gun in the United States are for home 
>and personal protection, target and sport shooting, and hunting. Anyone
>who thinks they can stand up to the might of the entire US police and
>military establishment is delusionary.
> 
>Blessings,
> 
>Murray

	Your words have moved me to write, Murray. There's no real 
conclusion I want to make here, just to let those who wonder know what it 
feels like to be a new handgun owner.


	I just got a handgun. It doesn't feel good. It feels creepy. And it 
made me think of all the people I have known who owned guns like the one I 
have. Guns that where designed for no other purpose than to kill people.

	I knew a survivalist type who had all sorts of weapons, some leagal, 
some not. He seemed to be perpetually angry. All those weapons. It really 
made me feel really edgy. He was always angry at someone and convinced 
someone was out to get him. He had a lot of guns. I'm glad I don't know him 
anymore.

	My grandfather's rifles sit in my garage. He has been dead many 
years now, but sometimes I go to the garage and take his rifles out and 
touch them. They feel like him. I read his hunting diary, written long ago 
when there where still plenty of black bears to hunt. It helps me remember 
him. I like these guns, I have no objection to hunting deer and bear for 
food if they are plentiful like my grandfather did. These guns remind me of 
him and bring him back across the years to me. I like these guns.

	I know people in East Palo Alto. That town has the second highest 
per-capita homicide rate in the country I'm told. I don't know personally, 
but sometimes late at night I can hear the gunshots over there. Machine guns 
and single shots. The people that I know who live there have handguns. They 
think nothing of shooting at someone. There's good reason for that, if they 
don't shoot first, they may get killed. People die there all the time. It 
makes me shudder to think how casually they regard another shooting on 
their block.
	Once when I was driving through East Palo Alto, a car pulled up 
next to me and the men in it started staring at me. Actually men is probably 
not the right term. They couldn't have been in their twenties yet. One of them 
pulled an uzi out and held it in the air above the car. When the light 
turned green, he fired into the air as they sped off. Blat-blat-blat-blat.
My heart thundered in my ears for the rest of the night.

	Now I own a handgun. I look down at the piece of cold metal and 
rubber resting uncomfortably in my hand and I feel sick. This thing was 
made for the express purpose of killing human beings. I don't like it. I 
don't like it at all. But the other night the police gunned down a man who 
was out of his mind on drugs and very well armed just a few blocks from 
where I live. It's a dangerous world out there, and it keeps getting 
smaller all the time. I own a handgun. I don't like it, but I own a 
handgun.


			- Ashley