Guns and the Young.,..

I have an odd relationship with guns. It's kind of like my relationship with Wal-Mart, in which I love the business and company but can't stand shopping at the store.

When it comes to guns, I'm a big believer in the right to bear arms. I think that the second ammendment means exactly what it says, and that John Lott was right when he wrote More Guns Less Crime, even if some of his stats may have been shaky. I think that most people who commit crimes use illegal guns, and lots of people cound defend themselves with a gun - and that criminals would be less likely to commit crimes if they thought there was a good chance their victim might be packing.

But I've never shot a gun or ever held one. I kind of feel like I should, if I'm going to advocate gun ownership, and that at some point (like when I buy a house) I may want a gun for protection. But I don't really have a strong desire beyond that to shoot a gun.

For some reason, a bunch of my coworkers are gun enthusiasts. You don't really think of tech support employees as gun nuts, but most of them are - and I've been invited a couple times to go to the range or to a cabin and do some shootin'

I've never taken them up on their offers, and I keep wondering if I should. On one hand, it might be a good experience, and give me something to back up my opinions on gun ownership. On the other hand, I don't really have any strong desire to go shooting. I'm also a little nervous if I should be the kind of person to fire a gun - I mean, I'm a bit of a klutz. I once fell in the shower and hit my head so hard I was walking around with a golf-ball sized lump for a month. So I don't know if a deadly weapon is something I should be holding.

Then again, I drive a car, and that's been described as a 2000 pound weapon. But I have a (somewhat) undeserved reputation as a bad driver, and coworkers often don't want to ride with me. So maybe that doesn't mean much.

(AFAIK, the whole bad driver thing comes from a time a couple years ago when I was driving down Northern Parkway to lunch with one of our system engineers riding shotgun. I had come to the intersection of Northern and Falls when the light turned amber. For those not familiar, Northern is a steep hill - with a red-light camera at the bottom. I slammed on the brakes to avoid a ticket, system engineer went flying and almost hit the windshield, and MadAnthony got a bad rep as a driver).