Oh, let me play devil’s advocate today.

Nobody is ever going to hear gun control horse hockey coming from my mouth, pen or keyboard.

First of all I am a card carrying member of the NRA. I am all about 2nd Amendment rights, and even more so in the wake of senseless mass shootings.  As far as I am concerned, the average citizen should be armed, everywhere and at all times, so that it can safely be assumed everyone is packing heat. I believe there is no greater deterrent to gun crime than having the knowledge that a law abiding gun owner will return fire.  I carry and I will continue to do so.

The issue is NOT gun control, or who can have what weapon. It’s obvious that criminals don’t obey laws or there would be no murders, no thefts, no rapes, and we would all hold hands and sing Kumbaya. The fact about legislation is, laws only work for law-abiding people.  There is no way to legislate crime out of business.  If such a thing were possible, then as soon as God sent down the Ten Commandments to Moses all would have been good with the world.  Sadly murder is as old as Cain and Abel, and it has always been a part of the human narrative. It’s something called original sin, or to borrow from one of my favorite theologians- John Calvin (though I am not a Calvinist- I am more of a confessional Lutheran/ Molinist, I am with him on this one)- the total depravity of man. Given to our own devices, apart from the grace of God, human beings are intrinsically evil.  Anyone who doubts that, go to a daycare and watch a room full of two year olds interact, or go to an automotive shop and secretly observe the technicians’ behavior for a day.  You will see more depravity of man than what should ever be allowed.

One can make weapons more difficult to get, but ultimately it’s not about weapons. Deny the nut job his AR-15, and he will find a way to make a box truck and some fertilizer a weapon of mass destruction.

In the UK, where guns are banned, killers substitute knives like they are some kind of twisted Early Cuylers. Death and injury are easy to inflict on the fragile human body, and as those who work in corrections will attest, criminals are adept at creating their own weapons using anything from underwear to plastic spoons.

So do we ban box trucks or fertilizer or underwear or plastic spoons simply because some depraved jackwagon can turn these things into weapons?

Some will argue that guns are made for only one purpose, which is to kill. I am not going to argue with that, nor am I going to argue that one needs an AR-15 to go out and shoot a deer.  However, the 2^nd Amendment was never about procuring venison, regardless of how tasty venison can be.  The 2^nd Amendment was and is about the individual’s right to defend one’s home, family and property.  This means that an individual has a right to use deadly force if his or her life (or the lives of his or her family) is threatened. We have the right to self-defense.

The role of the gun as a deterrent is often overlooked, but whose house would a criminal plan to rob? An organized killer (one who thinks and plans ahead) is going to try to avoid those homes with guns and/ or dogs, because killing defenseless victims is a lot easier than fighting armed ones.

Gun laws or the lack thereof would have had absolutely no impact on Stephen Paddock or his carefully planned assault on the Las Vegas strip. Enacting knee jerk motivated gun control laws now is about as effective as closing the barn door when the horses had never been in the barn to begin with.