Hi Peg

I never did take Latin, and although I looked up a bunch of words in the dictionary I keep next to my PC, I didn't look up that one (ad hominem).

I'm glad you see the point of my post, that honorable people can study a difficult question and differ on the best answer. I hope you also realize that I use you as an example of kneejerk reactions, rather than saying you're a kneejerk thinker. It's quicker to use an example than to double the size of an already long post to set up a teaching example (parable?).

As I see it, we have too many distractions from the "improving life" questions, because it suits politicians to keep creating "Us and Them" fights instead of really addressing serious problems. A problem wouldn't be serious if it was easy to solve.

The "Arming to the Teeth" side of things is not my experience with Carry Permit people. I mean real people, not the writers of idiot media on both side of this question. Some of the "Gun Nut Magazines" are every bit as objectionable to me as to you. All we carry permit people want is not to be victims. Our difference in thinking is our willingness to take concrete steps to prepare for the things we fear.   

I'll repeat what I regard as the most important part of my rant, that differences of opinion may be the result of ignorance, or the result of gullibility, but very few of the opinions we see on our forum are the result of evil intent. So, polite discussion of our differences is important to the growth of our cyber society. I always try to persuade, because I know that insults turn me off, and I don't expect to cause growth in others by insulting them.

Jeff Smith