People shouldn't *want* to own guns.

[Caliman73]

5. This is a good well thought out post.

Even as a firearm owner myself, I would subscribe to a lot of your argument more than I would to a lot of the arguments of people within "gun culture".

I grew up around firearms, and when I purchased a firearm it was like you described, under a very specific situation where I had to protect myself from credible threat.

A gun is a tool, and as you said, a tool with the ability to cause irrevocable damage both if used as intended, or used in a negligent or malicious manner. Even if you have to protect your life or the life of a loved one, you may still be killing someone and you have to constantly wrestle with that.

Too many people don't. They glorify guns, they fix them up, paint them, give them names, etc... separating themselves from the potential. Just like we separate ourselves from people who commit violence by calling them "crazy" or something else. When we do that, we allow a mindset to creep in that dehumanizes a situation and takes us away from our responsibility to each other.