Thursday, January 20, 2011

It begins with gun control

I saw a comedian the other day who brought up gun control. He was making the point that, when our forefathers wrote the Constitution and included the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms, the current firearms were all black powder guns. That means it took a few minutes to load each shot. They never imagined we would have guns that fire off 100 rounds or more a minute. The comedian's conclusion was that we could all keep guns but they all had to be muskets. Interesting when you think of it that way. What was going on 200 years ago when they wrote the Constitution was a lot different than now but they covered the basics. I'm all for some sort of gun control, but we should all be permitted to have at least as much firepower as our government (or more if I listen to some of my more radical Republican friends - you know who you are!). What it boils down to is that we have free will to do some things that appear stupid to others and the government and/or society wants to limit a lot of it. Some will argue with me but some things that appear innocuous on the surface have underlying implications or open the door for more "official" control. Helmets for motorcycle riders is one. They aren't much protection against a 2 ton Buick and if the rider doesn't mind cracking his head open, it's his choice. Helmets, elbow pads, and knee pads on kids riding bicycles is another. We managed fine for 80 years without them and it should be a parent's decision, not the government's. We have way more limitations on what we can and can't do now in the name of civilization and society than we used to. Some are good and some are bad. My thing is that, if God gave us free will, then why are we trying to suppress it at every turn. He surely knows what He is doing more than we do.

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