Is the 2nd Amendment rooted in the right to play with guns?

Fewer and fewer stories are showing up on many news aggregators about the whole bodiddlelink over Attorney Gen. Eric Holder and Operation Fast and Furious. Actually, George W. Bush should be in that group since the so-called “gunwalking” operation first happened under that latter’s watch as POTUS. The above link goes to a piece by L.A. Times columnist/cartoonist Davide Horsey which wraps up the whole story very well, I think. So good is that synopsis that the whole shebang doesn’t deserve repetition. Not to mention that it makes me somewhat sad and even repulsed that the right wing propaganda machine has spun such a wild tale and have millions believing that it is true that the whole operation — which did I tell you it was started under GW? — was a vast Obama conspiracy to take away our guns?

You know, when you say “take away our guns,” as in “Obama wants to take away our guns” it sounds rather infantile in the first place.  They want to take away our guns and we can’t play with them. Well, isn’t that what most of us actually end  up doing with our guns, playing with them? Shot anybody lately? I’m not speaking about George Zimmerman and, yes, it happens quite regularly that people protect their lives but mostly their property and end up, shooting and killing someone. This article cites FBI and state statistics which show justifiable homicide almost doubled over the past decade but the number was only about 2 percent of the total killings over that time period.

Some of my friends and relatives won’t like the tone of what I am saying. I also am not saying it because I think our guns should be taken away. First of all, there is no way in hell that is going to happen unless we end up with a leader like Hitler. And Barack Obama, you’re not Hitler. I am just being kind of a devil’s advocate. We all talk about guns for self-defense. That’s why we can’t let nothing happen to our Second Amendment right, right? Well, that’s a fact, Jack. If that is what you believe. I’m just saying that as many or more would really not want our guns taken away because of our fondness for them as a collectible — like stamps or cars or baseball cards — or because we like to shoot skeet or beer cans or old couches or squirrels or deer or bears or elk with them.

Look deep down into your soul and be truthful. How many of you who worry about something happening to your “right” to bear arms are concerned because your really worry someone is going to try to attack you or your property? Now, how many of you — still telling the truth — would hate to see guns disappear because of all the fun activities you have had with them?

I bet there are some friends of mine who either dislike guns or have some problem with the debate over having guns in the U.S. also may not be happy with me as well.  It doesn’t matter. I am just trying to make a point here. I have had a lot of fun with guns. Yet, if I said “I have had a lot of fun ‘playing’ with guns” to some folks I might sound like some irresponsible lunatic.

But, I have had fun playing with guns. By that I mean shooting skeet. Shooting beer cans. Shooting watermelons. Target shooting. And yes, when I was much younger I hunted. Some of the best times of my life I had playing with guns. Heaven forbid, sometimes we were even drinking beer while we were doing this. I got a couple of “Magnum eyebrows” that way.  Real ne’er-do-wells we were in our reckless youth. All of this was done by someone who also came very close to being shot by accident as a toddler.

It’s complicated, the relationship Americans have with their guns. We also have a difficult time telling ourselves the truth about why we are passionate about firearms.

This whole “Fast and Furious” thing, yeah, it was stupid. It was as stupid as when the program was started under Shrub Bush. It is despicable, though, that the right and the propaganda artists at Fox, Limbaugh and elsewhere have weaved this into such a deceitful and absurd story.

I don’t know. I feel like I have gone nowhere with writing this. It’s sort of symbolic of the whole story.

Shoot!