<< don't ever tell anybody they aren't free because they're
gonna get real busy "killing and maiming to prove to you that
they are... Oh yeah! they're gonna talk to "you, and talk to
you, and talk to you about individual freedom, but they see a
free "individual, it's gonna scare them...It makes them
dangerous" >>
And that's necessarily a bad thing? One which should scare us into giving up
bits and pieces of our freedom? If I have the right to speak my mind, to
stand up for what I believe, then someone has the right to dislike me, fear
me, or otherwise make my life hell....I wouldn't have it any other way.
It is what this country is supposedly all about, in a way. My opinion may
conflict with your opinion, but my right to have it should not conflict with
your right to have yours......If I frighen someone, then so be it.......if
they feel the need to attack me for it, then so be that, also.
Intimidation is fast becoming the American way of getting your way........the
chosen path of politicians and power-brokers. Actually, if I annoy someone,
it probably means my point is valid....very little time is wasted on the
ignorant and the ill-spoken. There is no sport in it.......
People fear what they do not know......and people try to suppress that which
fears them. If we let them succeed, by silence, by compromise, by backing
down, then we let them win. Even if no one ever got to buy another gun, or
own another military vehicle, we still win, so long as we do not let them buy
our silence or our acquisience along with it.
Someone mentioned Ray Bradbury........Fahrenheit 451 comes to my
mind.......They banned them all, all the books, all the written thoughts,
hopes, nightmares and dreams of all the lifetimes, and they STILL didnt stop
the knowledge from being passed down. Hopefully there will always be
individuals willing to risk, willing to dare, willing to remember and to
speak......without fear and without compromise.
As for people being killed by guns, yes they are......but thousands and
thousands more are killed by everyday acceptable things.......Blame the
media, blame the ACLU, blame the politicians.....blame all of those who have
focused on guns as a means to fan the flames.....I work in emergency
medicine.......I see the gunshots and the bullet holes on a fairly regular
basis......I have thrown them into the bowels of a helicopter and did a
"hot-load and go". I have stayed on a scene and worked for an hour trying to
staunch bleeding and repace fluids.........I know entrance wounds and exit
wounds by heart..........I've closed eyes and said prayers and cried tears
over teenagers without remaining faces in dark alleys........
But for every witnessed entrance and exit wound, self inflicted, or caused by
someone else, I have seen hundreds and thousands of other injuries that
people inflict on one another and on themselves......Thousands of drunken
drivers, hundreds of stabbings, bitings, clubbings, kickings, punchings, and
beatings, drug overdoses daily, electrocutions, falls, I've even seen a death
by curling iron........The number of actual gunshot wounds pales to faint
white in comparision to all of the other methods of mans inhumanity to
man......For every tear I have shed over a victim of a firearm, I have cried
an ocean over the rest of it......
You just dont $#*^$# read about it in the paper or hear about it on the Ten
O'Clock News....
It is not "newsworthy" it does not sell papers, it doesnt ignite that
"spark" that the word "gun" sets off, it does not FRIGHTEN the average
citizen....But guns, tanks, freedom to possess weapons, permits to carry
them, being allowed to drive a tank up the street on a Sunday morning, that
does frighten them....and people love to buy into what scares them......And
those that repeat the horror stories, print them on thread pages, that quote
stoned movie characters, they serve to propagate the myth that only guns kill
people, that mere possession is dangerous in itself, and they are guilty of
continually throwing gasoline on the embers......while staying a good and
safe distance away from the flames themselves....
Old, trite, but true words......"Guns dont kill people, people kill
people".....and take it from one who has been there done that for more years
than she cares to count, people DO kill people......yes, with guns
occasionally, but much more routinely and frequently with every other animate
and inaminate object available......repeatedly and in ways which would make
your hair curl.....(literally)
It is also true that guns dont scare people, people with guns scare
people..........people with stories and half baked truths about the dangers
of guns scare people........People who repeat the stories, who reprint the
stories, who incite with the stories and who enjoy the excitement and debate
created by the stories.........they scare people.....
They scare the hell out of me........for there is more danger to my own
personal freedom in half truths and rehashed storytelling then there is in
any amount of honestly acquired firepower or retired military vehicle.......
It should be what frightens all of us......not the guns, not the tanks, not
the rights not the rescinding of the rights......but the people who live
vicariousy thru flirting with words they dont believe in, who
indiscriminately blow off the rights of others in favor of their own, and who
then retreat back into the gray area to watch those of us who see in black
and the white battle over what the gray has started....
That frightens me.......
===
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