How Much Is Too Much?

So, the whole "You might be a gun nut if" thing got me to thinking, always a frightening prospect. There are as many possible designators of being a gun nut as there are, in fact, gun nuts out there - we're a slippery crowd, and trying to buttonhole us into tidy little groups is doomed to fail. There are anarchists side-by-side with anti-government right wingers and government-is-the-only-answer left wingers. Trying to lump us all into one mindset is an exercise in sheer folly.

One of the defining "you might be a gun nut if" characteristics is that we all tend to have "too many" guns. Now, how many guns constitutes "too many" is a subject for intense scrutiny and debate - to the Sarah Brady's and Rebecca Peters' out there, one gun is "too many". Even so much as a single-shot .22LR is too much power for one person to possess and must be squelched. For others, one or two guns is okay, so long as neither is a "scary" rifle or a handgun. Still others wouldn't dream of saying "hey, that's really too many guns" unless the armory was the size of a large city - or Rhode Island...

It brings to mind a larger question, though. If we can't even agree on how many guns is "too much", how can we possibly offer up ideas like "one gun a month" laws? Why is one gun a month the magic number? Why not one gun a year? Or one gun a lifetime? I mean, if we can own even one gun, can't they claim the second amendment is still intact? As long as we have one single-shot .22LR rifle, that must be stored under lock and key in a secure, separate facility, then we can keep (own) and bear (use at the range under armed guard) arms. Right?

To some of these people, this is perfectly legitimate thinking...

Imagine, if you will, claiming that the government had the right to censor the radio waves, TV transmissions, and the internet simply because those media did not exist back in the days of our founding fathers. Certainly they could never have envisioned a world where information was transmitted instantaneously, right? They would have agreed that controls would be needed over this incredibly powerful method of getting the word out, certainly.

Sounds silly, doesn't it?

Yet the anti-gun forces have no qualms about arguing - with a straight face, no less - that the second amendment should only cover muskets and other 18th century weaponry. Or they argue the collective end - that the "militia" mentioned in the wording of the second amendment refers to the National Guard. That, as John Kerry intones, if one wishes to possess firearms, one must join the military. Or, more succinctly, in the hands of private citizens, "too many" firearms is any number greater than zero.

Fortunately for all of us, their numbers are in the distinct minority, and falling all the while. As we shine the light of education upon the ignorant, their emotional appeals fall on increasingly deaf ears. As more and more years go by and places like Texas and Florida are not awash in bloodshed as a result of shall-issue concealed carry, the shrill warnings of "blood in the streets" become more and more hollow. As more average folks - read: non-gun-nuts - see that the antis rely on lies, obfuscations, and raw appeals to emotion and not logic or facts, we win.

Keep up the good fight everyone. I'm damn proud to be on your team.

That is all.