I accept that the Constitution affirms an individual right to keep and bear arms, I believe that self-defense is a basic human right and I don’t think gun prohibition would work any better than alcohol prohibition did or drug prohibition does.
But speaking for myself, I have no desire to own a firearm. I would be terrified at the possibility that, in a moment of panic, I might take a human life.

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I grew up in the 1940s and 1950s in Williamsport, Md., a small town on the Potomac River at the foothills of the Appalachians. Almost everyone in town owned a gun, mainly for hunting and sometimes for killing animal pests or target shooting. I have fond memories of my father, with newspaper spread out across the kitchen table, cleaning and oiling his deer rifle prior to hunting season. What I never heard back in those days was the need to own a gun to defend yourself against somebody else who owned a gun.
A Gannett editor who worked in Las Vegas once told me that young men in Nevada like to take junk refrigerators and other appliances out into the desert, and blow them to pieces with high-powered firearms. That sounds like a lot of fun. I don’t have any quarrel with anybody who likes to do that.
I’ve met owners of convenience stores in high-crime neighborhoods who think they need to own guns for self-protection. That is their decision and their right.
But count me out. If I bought a gun for self-protection, I would have to make up my mind that I was in such grave personal danger that I would have to be willing to take a human life. It would be like being in the military. Then I would take firearms training in order to be sure I could handle a gun safely and responsibly, without a danger to myself or bystanders. That would not be a casual decision. If my life had taken a different course, I might have found myself in circumstances in which I thought differently. But such circumstances are not the norm.
The vision of a society in which everyone carried a gun at all times, like the movie version of the Wild West, is an appealing fantasy to some people. To me, it is a nightmare. Robert A. Heinlein many years ago wrote a science fiction novel, Beyond This Horizon, set in a future in which every citizen carried a gun and duels were common. Heinlein thought this would result in a process of natural selection, in which survivors were either quick and accurate marksmen, or very, very polite. I don’t think this would be the reality.
The idea of teachers in the classroom being armed is dreadful. Teachers would be like prison guards. If this idea were implemented, I would expect a rash of “stand your ground” shootings in the schools. Now there might be circumstances in which bringing armed police officers into the school is necessary, but it would be a necessary evil.
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