Openmind
Well-Known Member
I believe I understand your stand better than you give me credit for.
I relate your strong feelings about your right to own a gun to my feelings about my right to make a decision about my own body, and not having either a government or religious bigots infringe on that right. And, because I value that right for myself, I also value it for other women.
Yet, I do realize that some women (as some gun owners) are NOT as responsible or as ethical about the choice they make about their own body or the potential life they can create. . .and that excess do take place (i.e., some women, although I believe they are few and far between, will choose to forego taking effective birth control and instead will rely on abortions for "birth control."). This part about "the right to choose" bothers me, but it doesn't mean that I would take away women's right to choose because of those few irresponsible women. So I am GLAD that SOME of the "right to choose" has been taken away, so as to limit the damage done by those irresponsible women, who, by convenience, might decide to wait until the embryo develops a brain stem to choose to terminate the pregnancy at a later stage. And. . .obviously, in spite of the abortion laws, there will ALWAYS be excess and criminals who will not follow the law.
I assume that you feel the same about your right to own a gun. And I assume that the number of killing that occurs because of the number of irresponsible gun owners bothers you as well. But you do not seem to be willing to accept ANY control to curb the incidence of "irresponsible gun owners." I may be wrong on this, but I don't think I have read any comments coming from you to resolve the obvious excess in gun ownership. Obviously, gun laws have worked in other countries (i.e., Switzerland and England). I am not talking about taking ALL guns away from responsible owners, but why not make it A LOT harder for anyone to get a license, why is it necessary for anyone who is not in a law enforcement role, to have a concealed weapon in a public place, while shopping with your children, while going to a theater? Why is it necessary to continue to allow those high capacity ammo magazine? If one holds dear his right to own a gun for DEFENSE, why would one need more than two rounds of ammos? Why would one be willing to take a driving, a written and even a vision test to obtain a driver license, and be willing to renew that driver license every 4 or 5 years, sometime (as for resident aliens), having to wait for 6 weeks prior to obtaining that renewed driving license, but be able to purchase a KILLING MACHINE at a gun show with no or minimal background check?
I would be interested in hearing your position on that. . .I mean. . .not JUST on your "right to own a gun," but on how much oversight on that right you would be willing to accept in order to make gun ownership less deadly to your fellow citizens. . .maybe to your own grand children!
By the way, as an after thought, I want to reaffirm that, although I STRONGLY value the right of all women to make their own decisions about their own reproductive role, I have been very fortunate to never have to be faced with the decision to terminate (or not) a pregnancy. And I owe this wonderful blessing in great part to my husband who, once we had the child we so much wanted, offered to have a vasectomy to avoid further pregnancies. The reason he "sacrificed" his right to have more children was because he already had 2 older boys from a previous marriage, and he was 11 years older than I was. We agreed that, if anything should happen to our couple, he already had three children, and he would not feel the need to have another child. But I was much younger and only had one child, so I may have wanted (if I remarried) to have another child.
As things turned out, we both decided that our little boy was too lonely as an only child in our home, and that we had the ability (mental, emotional, and economic) to raise another child, so we adopted a little Korean girl into our family.
But, even after all these years, I am so grateful to my husband for allowing me to be both a mother and a wife, without ever having to be concerned about an unwanted pregnancy! I wish more women were as fortunate!
