"sawed off shotgun, hand on the pump! left hand on a forty, puffin' on a blunt!"

expounding on emily1's post...

the assault weapons ban goes kaput tomorrow. now, i'm all for gun ownership. i'm originally from a part of the country where huntin' was the rage. school attendance would go down during deer hunting season. one of my teachers had quite a collection of antlers on his wall, and he would often take a few boys aside and discuss the thrill of the hunt. although i doubt that sitting in a hole for hours waiting for a deer to pass within range is "thrilling," i respect people's right to have fun while simultaneously achieving the state's goal of controlling the deer population. my sister's boyfriend's family loves to hunt. i've had the pleasure of chowing down on freshly killed venison and game fowl. if they would take an unskilled idiot to go hunting with them, i would be excited to go -- not deer hunting; that would be boring, but shooting at strategically released game fowl would be sort of fun. i like fishing. hunting is the same to me. cooking food you just caught is satisfying. and it tastes GUUUUUUUD!

i also think that it is reasonable to own a gun to protect yourself, your family, and your property from intruders.

none of these activities requires the use of assault weapons. plus, if you take a military-grade machine gun to go hunting, it's like taking a huge net to trawl a pond for catfish. there is no sport in that -- if you were to do that, you're just a fucking lazyass twat, and you should be laughed at for the rest of your life for being a weenie. and how common is it for an army of thugs to storm your house, bringing about the need to own a weapon that can wipe out the population of little cayman faster than a raging hurricane? reality check: you don't live in a quentin tarantino film.

to be honest, ten years ago, i probably wouldn't have cared very much either way about the federal assault weapons ban. new york, california, and massachusetts - all urban states - have their own bans, and some are more stringent than the current ban. i generally believe that states are more equipped to handle their own issues. different localities have different issues, and it's more efficient and effective for localities to handle their own special problems.

however, we live in a different world. 9-11 was a wakeup call - there are dangerous people roaming the planet, and beefing up national security is a huge priority. tomorrow, a terrorist can go to west virginia (assuming that west virginia doesn't have a ban), buy an AK-47, come to new york city, and let loose a barrage of bullets in grand central station. after all, you don't have to show ID to cross state lines.

it bothers me that people are ready to trample all over some portions of the bill of rights (please see "michelle malkin") in the name of "national security" while kowtowing to overly powerful gun lobbyi$t$ to expand the scope of the second amendment - withough regard to pragmatism or basic logic. it is absolutely appalling.

anyhow, please vote kerry. i'm sure he'd be a better hunting companion anyway.