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The previous days of carnage in Mumbai, India are once again proof of how much damage can be done by a group of determined individuals possessing weapons of one kind or another, which in this case seems to have been mostly machine guns. Watching the bloody events unfold, I couldn’t help think back to the news immediately following the election of Barack Obama -- U.S. gun store owners reported a marked increase in the sales of guns and ammunition.
Before readers jump to the conclusion that as a left-leaning writer and observer of the American and world scenes I am against the right to bear arms, let me remind you that I am an avid shooter and gun owner -- so there! That doesn’t mean I don’t support certain restrictions on the types of guns one might want to possess -- there’s absolutely no good reason to own, say, a bazooka. But there’s no denying that this country is stocked to the hilt with weaponry of all kinds.
My point (and question) is this: After every Democratic president is elected, the Right (supported by the zealots at the NRA) start screaming the government is going to move to take their guns away, even though such a thing, not even in the remote sense, has EVER happened. They said it after Jimmy Carter took office, after Bill Clinton was elected, and now they’re saying it again in the aftermath of Obama’s win.
Does anyone really think the government is actually going to start going house to house to take people’s guns away? I find it incredible that anyone would reach such a conclusion, not only, as said, because it’s never happened, but because such a move would be political suicide and doomed to failure. I’m willing to bet anyone that four years from now not a single person in this country will have had a gun taken away. To prove my point, I’ll periodically revisit this subject, no doubt to report that, with each successive accounting, Americans will still be able to purchase and own guns.
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To two thirty three pm poster wrote on Dec 8, 2008 3:44 PM: