[Hagalaz]

Originally Posted by Rocky7

Your response was plain and polite. I appreciate that and will respond likewise.

If you support current restrictions on my freedom and security and that of my family, then we are indeed opponents. That is not meant to be inflammatory, that's just the way it is. I have said many times that gun control is not about guns. Therefore, the fact that you are a gun owner neither adds nor subtracts from your argument or the strength of your positions about gun control, nor should you expect that. Furthermore, how can the purchase of a thing impart some higher level or knowledge or experience or thought?

I do not believe it is necessary - nor is it even logical - to expect that everyone who owns a gun will have done the depth of reading, research and thinking that I, and others, have done. With that reading, research and thinking my own opinions have changed over time. There was a time when I would not have supported CCW.

These days, I draw a hard line on gun control. If you have read my comments here, you ought to understand why. If it suits you to simply write me off as an "extremist", that's your choice - but that doesn't make it so.



Your are confusing tolerance and honesty. You are also demanding from everyone else what you do not give to them - tolerance.

You are free to speak here. That is tolerance. I am free to point out that you are wrong in fact and wrong in theory. That is where your tolerance is required, but missing.

I am not required to tolerate irrational opinion without speaking out in order to demonstrate that I am not an "extremist". I am especially not required to keep my mouth shut when those opposing, unfounded opinions are the support for laws that subtract from my freedom.



The problem lies with you, my friend. If someone here does not agree with, aka "tolerate", your opinions, you ought to give them credit for having some reason for that and ask a question. Responding with empty labels is not helpful. Sometimes, labels are helpful but only when they can be backed up with facts. Only in those latter instances are labels a useful shorthand in conversation.



Some of us are not willing to settle for less in order to find a consensus. That is not "divide and conquer" at all; that is how it should be. Unless there were idealists in the gun community, we'd still have the LGR.



Who has said that killing the LGR was not a positive? I think you have been hearing things that were not said. Just because some us do not settle for a return to the mid-90's liberal gun control laws does not mean we are malcontents. I think it means we are just better informed. I would sincerely suggest you consider that as a possibility.

Regardless, it is important to have a forum where plain talk can be exchanged.

Great post.

Everything I could have wanted to say, plus some things that never crossed my mind.