I get the impression sometimes with the gun debate that the more vociferous people on both sides don't really know just what it is that they're actually arguing about, because they are both dealing in vague emotional impressions and overreactions to some kind of imagined extreme that they fantasize about in regards to the people on the other side of the debate.

Americans are not unique in owning guns or in having "a right to bear arms". Plenty of people, for example, own guns in Canada, and always have, and this is true in many other countries as well. It's been customary ever since frontier times, after all, when pretty much every rural citizen had a long gun for hunting purposes and for self-defence against dangerous animals or other dangers that might come up. You will still find that rural people are much more likely to own a gun (usually a rifle) than urban people are, and that has happened because of a long tradition going right back to the first settlement of North America by Europeans.

So what are people actually debating about? It isn't a question of people having guns that's really at issue...millions of people have guns. It's a question of responsible handling of those guns, licensing of guns, training courses in safe use of guns, what places you should be allowed to carry a gun in (either openly or concealed), what animals you should be allowed to hunt, etc.

In other words, it's a lot like licensing and regulating the driving of motor vehicles...another device which can kill people, and very often does kill people....or airplanes...another potentially dangerous device which requires licensing and much training before you are allowed to fly one around in public airspace.

Now, if you look back at the early days of both automobiles and airplanes, there were no regulations at all about them at first. As the number of automobiles and airplanes increased and the population density increased, a great many regulations and laws proliferated regarding their use...up till today when we have a mountain of paperwork to wade through before driving a car (on public roads) or flying an airplane.

The same thing has happened with guns. There were once no regulations about owning guns, there are now some regulations about owning guns. Why should this surprise anyone??? It's happened with pretty much everything else that is at all comparable, so why wouldn't it happen with guns?

Official regulations and paperwork always annoy people, because most people wish to be left alone to make their own decisions. They trust themselves to make the right decisions, don't they? ;-) When society (via the government) decides to make the decision for them, they get annoyed about it! I do. You do. Everyone does. That's life...

And I do personally thing we now live in an over-regulated society...for what it's worth.

But the funny thing is, people don't get that annoyed when the government decides that the other guy should or should not do something, do they? Maybe the people on both sides of the gun debate should start trying to understand and relate to the people on the other side instead of just seeing them as some kind of extreme stereotype. It might help...