mikeybound wrote:These kill people. Should growing up around them even be considered a good thing?
I think you're seeing things a trifle too narrowly here mikeybound; though in light of recent events this is perfectly understandable - especially if you never grew up with guns yourself. Not all guns are
intended to kill
people (though of course they can). My father for example had a shotgun and a hunting rifle because he liked to hunt deer, rabbits, and go duck hunting. I could always see the guns even when I was very young, but they were never loaded when left in the house and I knew to
never ever touch them for ANY reason. They weren't to play with, they weren't to touch, and if I ever did without permission I'd be in BIG trouble!!! Well, that was enough for me and so never touched the things - in fact I was reluctant to even when dad said it was okay when he tried to teach me how to go hunting when i was older and more responsible.
Unlike my older brother though I not had a strong reluctance to touch those guns but the idea of killing anything with them repelled men utterly; and not just because I didn't want to have to clean the guts out of whatever i shot either (though that was an added inducement).
But I grew up in the country, where hunting was always a part of the way of life while conversely the need of guns for home defense is almost unheard of. No one i knew thought of guns the way people are thinking about them now; or at least that wasn't really the primary reason to have them. IMO at least guns are not what is wrong with our society so much as peoples' rather (to me anyway) off-kilter obsession with the things.
Dare to be different... and make a difference.
To boldly go where no one in their right mind has gone before...