AnninCA, I usually ignore you, but your offhand stereotypes of Republicans/Conservatives are particularly offensive and stupid today.

I live in a suburb of Detroit (not one of the wealthy ones), not the woods, and I’m saving to buy my first guns. I don’t need one to protect myself against anyone or anything in particular – no wild animals and I don’t fear my neighbors – but I want one (or two) for a variety of reasons that I consider commonsense.

Crime does happen here, and it’s been increasing as the economy has declined. One more blow to the auto industry could unleash the panic that’s brewing under the surface all around me. My sister was attacked by a man who came in off of her balcony – in a second story apartment – and, despite her black belt, weight lifting, and kickboxing lessons, that average sized man did her some serious damage before a miracle caused him to accidentally lock himself outside of the bathroom, after throwing her into the bathtub. She broke the ceramic soapdish off with her head, but was able to frighten him off by screaming and breaking everything she could lay her hands on in the bathroom. She’d been fighting him off and screaming continuously throughout the attack, but it was only moments before she had the courage to run out of the bathroom to the hallway that one of her neighbors decided to call the police. They all thought, it seems that it was just a boyfriend beating her up, or something similarly banal. She had cuts all over the back of her head, arms, and hands, where he’d beaten her with the gun that he, thank God, never fired, and one of her fingers was broken so badly that she ended up with a bone infection that required a month of IV antibiotics to clear up, and she’ll never be able to bend it, even halfway, again. It could have been worse. It scares the hell out of me to think about how it could have been worse, but it could have. My doors are always locked, day and night, especially when my husband is working out of town, which is most of the time now. If someone breaks in, they’ll have to make some noise doing it, and give me time to grab the shotgun that I hope to own, soon.

I had big dogs for years, but never as weapons. Doesn’t fit with my beliefs regarding dog ownership. Dogs are pets, not replacements for guns, and, if I had one now, I’d have a gun as much to protect my dog as to protect myself and family. I can’t think of anything worse than coming home to find my house ransacked, and my dog dead, because it tried to protect my property. If I were you, I’d be teaching my dog to hide from intruders, but maybe you’re not that fond of it.

I also believe that responsible, sane, decent people have a responsibility to their community to own a gun that they’re trained to use. Not everyone is able to be a gun owner, for a myriad of reasons, and having armed citizens makes a community safer, which is why I also plan to buy a handgun and get a Concealed Carry Permit (though it galls me that I should need a permit from the government, I’ll follow the law). I like my community, and I like the idea of being able to do my part to make it safer, whether the threat is from an armed criminal, a terrorist threat (no, I don’t live in Dearborn either, but every city in this area has a larger than average Muslim population, making the chances higher that we’ll have some extremists among us), or even from our own government.

I don’t *expect* any of these things to happen, though I’m sure you’ll be all too thrilled to write me off as a conspiracy kook, but I’d like to be prepared to protect myself, even if I never have to fire my guns anywhere but the range. I *love* my family, my neighbors, my community, and I love them enough to do all I can to keep them from harm, no matter what kind of threat they face.

Talk of people living in the woods and building bombs is idiotic, and has no basis in reality. Ted Kaczynski is no conservative, and he’s the only example I can think of that you could be referencing. My family and friends actually had discussions about whether we should put up McCain signs last year, because we feared, at the very least, vandalism. People might talk tough here about being prepared for violence, or dangle possibilities that they’re building bombs, but you miss the whole point of that talk – it’s because we’ve seen the evil that leftism has done, and we don’t wish to become victims of that evil, not because we’re preparing to attack. We want to be left alone! What part of that is so hard for the left to understand?

Don’t start nothin’, won’t be nothin’. Asshole.

ral514 on July 14, 2009 at 4:15 PM