Firearms

Let's just put this out there to begin with. I am a gun owner, I enjoy collecting, handling, and firing guns. It is a hobby of mine. Now that this is covered let's march onward. I have encountered a lot of anti-gun feelings as of late. This can be further segregated into two groups. Those who are anti-gun with regard to crime and those who are anti-gun with regard to hunting. Let's address the latter first. When it comes to hunting all I can say is that long before there were guns people were hunting. Even if you took them away completely people would still hunt. With bows, spears, rocks, traps, etc. Hunting is a part of being human, get over it. Now we move on to the much larger and most vocal group, the higher crime stance anti-gunners. These people argue that the private ownership of firearms causes higher crime. I have owned guns for several years and been around them my whole life and out of all the people I know that own guns, none of them, absolutely zero, have ever committed a crime. In fact when President Obama took office gun sales sky rocketed. 2009 was a record year for firearms and ammunition manufacturers. In fact so much ammo was being sold that there were nation wide shortages of ammunition and cartridge components. Yet a funny thing happened. Crime didn't increase. Violent crime decreased by 7 percent. In fact crime has been on the decline since 2000 as gun sales began to climb, albeit a steady decline. However after the record firearms sales year of all time, crime dropped dramatically. I'll tell you why. Because criminals are cowards. If they even think that there might be an armed citizen in that house, they won't break in. They aren't willing to gamble their lives for some valuables. Also with regard to violent crime, someone is a lot less likely to get murdered if they are capable of killing their assailant. The armed society is the polite society. Now that we've covered the facts I'm going to talk opinion. My view is that I don't get after you for how you live your life, what hobbies you choose, who you associate with, etc. Don't come after me and start telling me that my hobby is evil and must be made illegal. I don't do it to you, please respect me and do the same.