Well, now i'm heated, and i'm gonna go ahead and do what i said i wasn't - i'm gonna talk about gun control (which is a merely a band aid, for a much bigger problem, but it's better than "bleeding" all over the place). You may want to abort reading this status now...
COMMENCE RANT:
I hear a lot of people talking about how this country is founded on personal freedom and liberty, and they say that means a private citizen should have the freedom to protect themselves, their families, and their property from anyone that may want to take them by force - hence, the right to bear arms.
So first off, let's talk about that big buzzword "Freedom" for a minute. "Land of the Free", as the U.S. is called. What does it really mean to be free? I will tell you what it does not mean first: it does not mean ABSOLUTE freedom - not in this context. Absolute freedom means you can do whatever you want. Clearly this is not the case. You are not free to run naked through the streets. You are not free to play your music as loud as you want. You are not free to yell "fire" in a movie theater, etc. ...and these are just laws. I won't even go in to all the normative limitations we have on freedom. So you are not free - not really - sorry if I've bursted anyone's bubbles. But it's OK, because part of living in community and society is that it doesn't allow for absolute freedom. If you want total freedom, you can [theoretically] go into the woods, live by yourself, and do whatever the hell you want - but as long as you want the benefits of living with others, you will need to surrender a number of personal freedoms for the society to function.
The concept of "freedom" that our forefathers believed in was NOT of the absolute kind; it was freedom from OPPRESSION. It was about an individual being free to be themselves (have opinions and voice them, practice their own religion, etc.), and to reach their own potential (the pursuit of happiness). These freedoms differentiate us from oppressed nations, like Vietnam, where they cannot speak out against their corrupt government in public without fear of retaliation.
The "Bill of Rights", lists in the first amendment these freedoms which they believed to be inalienable (that is, we as human beings have a right to them by our very nature). The rest of the document contains a number of rights to protect citizens against a tyrannical or OPPRESSIVE government (including the right to bear arms). Our forefathers came from a monarchy (a dictatorship, in essence), and it was extremely important to them to ensure that the U.S. government would never be able wield its power on the people in an oppressive fashion. They were terrified of tyranny and put laws in place to protect them against their biggest fear.
So here we are approx 250 years later, and by the grace of God, we still live in a country where we are relatively free from oppression. And there is no longer a general fear of our government changing and becoming a dictatorship. Is it possible? Sure. But not likely. And thank God that's true, because considering the size of our military, the existence of nuclear weapons, biological weapons, etc., if our government wanted to turn against the people, they are perfectly capable of doing so, regardless of how many guns our private citizens carry - we'd be screwed.
So what is our biggest fear now as a society? Probably something along of the lines of getting mugged, murdered, raped, etc. or having one of those things happen to the people we love. That is, WE ARE NOW MUCH MORE AFRAID OF EACH OTHER, THAN WE ARE OF THE GOVERNMENT. We are now looking to the government to protect us from each other. Ironic, no?
The idea of limitations on guns is protect us from each other (sad but true). Does this also leave us unprotected against our government, should they try to oppress us? Yes. But this is a risk that is worth taking, since there is a far greater chance that one of us will be killed by a gun that at some point was legally bought and sold (making it's way into the hands of a criminal from there), than that our government will turn oppressive... want proof? Just wait 18 minutes. (That's the time between gun related deaths in the U.S. every day, on average.)
END RANT
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