Sage

(woman here... FYI)

My grandfather was a gunsmith, my dad has always owned guns, my house actually got set on fire because someone was creating a diversion to go and steal some guns from a neighbor. My In-Laws shoot trap and skeet, as do all their friends. My father-in-law has been duck hunting in mexico about a bajillion times. My (crazy) Uncle Wayne deer hunts every season, with a bow, with a muzzle loader, with a gun. The only "bad" thing that ever happened to anyone in the previous listing was my grandfather died in a hunting accident, and that was because his buddy was walking with the saftey off, tripped, dropped the gun, and it shot my grandfather in the back.

In my 10th grade health and fitness class in high school we took Hunter's Saftey Training, which included the sheriff of my county coming to the practice football field so we could shoot skeet off the back of the sherrif's car. On school property (mind you, this was seven years ago).

I was scared to damn death of even being near a gun until last thanksgiving, when my father in law took me and Martel and some of the family friends out skeet shooting. I had never shot a gun (other than the three or so times in the health and fitness class) before then. After I got used to it, and understood how it worked and how to aim and fire, it was really really fun. Like I say for every other thing in the world, knowledge is power. The more you understand guns, past the "stay behind the barrel" advice, the better off the world is if you have a gun.

Guns are a part of America, and I'm all for more manditory gun education- I think if all 9th graders learned about the proper way to respect firearms, guns wouldn't be such a "big deal" (ie- everyone afraid of them)

ON the flipside, it seems like all the countries that don't allow private citizens to have guns also have a lower homicde rate... but I don't know the stats off the top of my head to back that up.

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