Having read article after article and commentaries on same – the issue of guns, the Second Amendment and rights of ownership – I have finally decided not to just buy a gun, but also to obtain a concealed-carry permit.
It isn't that I actually fear for my life, or that I feel I need the "protection" at all times. It is the principle of the matter that is important now. People who believe guns should be removed from "civilized" society are living in a vacuum with no clear understanding of just what that really means.
For many years I have debated with myself about getting a weapon and concealed-carry permit. I'm not particularly given to the idea of owning a gun. However, it is truly amazing how time, maturity and the decay of society in the United States can affect one's thinking, not to mention the often not-so-quiet assault on the very idea of the freedom to own or not own a weapon.
I grew up around guns. Learned to handle most caliber-size weapons, from a .410-gauge shotgun up to a .44 Magnum pistol – all under the tutelage of my father and older brother, with clear instruction and counsel on the respect for the instruments we worked with. Skeet and trap shooting were regular activities at my home, and I got pretty good at it. Target shooting with rifles and pistols of multiple calibers was a frequent activity as well.
So I am not a hotshot idiot thinking I need to go out and buy a gun. As I said, I'm not exactly thrilled by the ownership mantle, but I do feel it is time to exercise this right to the extent allowed by the law. Thus the goal of a concealed-carry permit.
Why the government doesn't want you to own weapons is pretty clear: An unarmed society is easy to control. The idea that if you outlaw guns only criminals will have them is fairly accurate, since they don't abide by the law in the first place. Second, outlawing guns disarms a population that might fight back against their "masters," preventing a tyrannical overthrow of an otherwise civil society.
After all, the Declaration of Independence outlined the reason for the creation of this nation: the desire for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Second Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed that the people, entitled to ownership of arms, might be able to preserve that mandate against a government the Founding Fathers neither trusted nor truly believed would remain benevolent if the people ceased to exercise and ultimately came to be denied this and many other rights.
Geoffrey F. Arnold