Spent Christmas day with the in-laws (or out-laws as I like to call them). I have no idea how we got onto he subject exactly, but with the father-in-law who is disabled and has nothing better to do than watch the liberal media and all the talking heads, we start talking about guns. Now the old man collects guns. He collects WWII era guns. They are all safe queens every last one of them. That is all fine and dandy.
He says that since he is getting older he sees things differently. He stated that there is no legitimate reason for a 33round glock magazine other than to be used by lazy people at the range. I have to agree for the most part on that point. However, he proceeded to state that even more than 10 rounds is not needed. But it went even farther. He proceeded to talk about red-light cameras, and cameras on every street corner in america to prevent crime.
I said that is ridiculous and he looked at me with the stink eye. I said nearly every liquor store in America has a camera system installed and they still get robbed. If red light camera stopped people from running red lights, then why do they still issue tickets from running red lights?
Of course he brought up England and their outlawing of firearms all together. I said they still have shootings despite all guns being illegal. They still have crime. Stabbing and beatings went up after the ban. Now you cannot barley even own a large kitchen knife in England from what I understand.
When I asked him why they still have crime when they have down everything they can to limit the ability for criminals to commit crimes, he stated “because you cannot legislate morality.” Then I asked him, if they cannot legislate morality, then why does he feel the way he does.
He was quiet for a minute and said he is just so tired of every time he turns on the news all he sees is bad senseless violence. Violence that he feels could have been prevented. He said the only thing that saved lives at the AZ shooting of Congresswoman Giffords, was the guy ran out of the 33 rounds in his glock and while reloading, a woman grabbed the second magazine when it fell to the ground.
I said do you think he could have killed the same amount of people with a 10 round magazine? He said maybe. So would the magazine capacity prevented the crime, I asked. He said we will never know.
I argued that the second amendment is not about magazine capacity, or legitimate use or non-legitimate use. It is about protecting freedom. The founders added it as the 2nd amendment and not the 5th, 6th, etc because it was that important to them. It was on the forefront of their minds. Second only to freedom of speech. I informed him that the purpose of the second amendment was to prevent the government from squashing liberty and to ensure that the people had the same level of arms as the Army, etc. Think about the framer’s frame of mind after just defeating their former government, I said.
The real kicker in all this is that the man keeps asking me to buy him guns (which I do not do for a myriad of reasons - yes he is legally able to buy them himself) because he doesn’t want big brother knowing what he has. Yet he wants Big Brother to watch our every move with cameras and he feels that police should be allowed to fully encrypt their radio communications to prevent the criminals from listening in.
It is just frustrating. He thinks that because he thought one way (like me) when he was younger and know he thinks this “other” way. I think the difference is that I think more logically and he thinks more emotionally, now.
Am I the only one with a hypocritical of sorts father-in-law? It kills me. He doesn’t vote yet he gets all riled up by the way the politicians are running the country. It just kills me, kills me, kills me.
:suicide:
