Is that a gun in your pocket...

...or are you happy to see me.
Yeah, silly, but I need something like that to help change my mood. I'm pissed, depressed, aggravated, frustrated, and all manner of flummoxed by the massive level of stupidity that has taken hold, especially around guns.

In general, the brain power of the American society has fallen by leaps and bounds. I blame this on my biggest pet peeve; the lack of responsibility that has taken place. We don't hold others responsible for their actions or hold ourselves responsible for what we do. Someone or something else is always to blame. Drunk driver kills someone; the bartender over-served them. A young man joins a street gang; he's from a poor neighborhood. A child is obese; fast food makers are the problem. A young man shoots up a crowd of people; we need to ban guns. Our children are stupid; more money is needed for schools. The true problems in these cases: The drunk who gets in the car, the young man who took the "easy" way out, the parents who don't control what their child eats, the young man himself, and once again, the parents who don't truly care for their offspring.

The progressive mindset (I try to avoid the term 'liberal' because these people have no idea what liberty means) wants to stay in college forever. They want to have a place to live at their level of comfort, to be able to 'party' as they please, to attempt to show others how intellectual they are by protesting, marching, and shouting down those they don't like, but again, to not be responsible for the backlash that is prone to come, and to have no true responsibility in any of it. They want it provided to them.
They are not responsible to produce anything, other than a semi-positive grade on a piece of paper, which the way many schools are now, you can do that by showing up. They want to be cared for, but not have to answer to anyone for it. They want to be protected from violence, but applaud when violence is perpetrated against "those who deserve it." It's because of this mindset that I can see why they're so opposed to private citizens owning guns and being responsible for their own safety.

The modern progressive (and so many others) wanders around the Earth without a care. They drive their cars mindlessly, talking on the phone, texting, doing their hair, reading, shaving, talking with friends, or anything that takes them away from the fact that they're wielding a 1-2 ton vehicle capable of inflicting death or carnage upon anyone in their path. They 'play' with drugs, prescription and non, because "It makes me feel creative/able to cope/motivated/happy/etc..." yet these can kill in minutes. Sex has long since past its purpose to them, that being reproduction, and it's simply a way to feel good, or empowered, or a way to express their feelings, or just something to do, yet to deal with the outcome, whether it being pregnancy or a disease, is beneath them. Someone else needs to deal with these problems; not them.
So when faced with something whose sole purpose was to actually kill, they panic. They call those of us who own or wield such things "Nuts! Idiots! Pathetic! Terrorists!" Because we're willing to take responsibility for our own safety or the safety of our families, we're "Less of a man".
Slight aside, but that one always amuses me. I'm somehow less of a man because I bring a gun to a fistfight. Ask any real fighter; not someone who thinks they're a tough guy, but someone who has gotten into many fights time after time and they will use whatever means at their disposal to either get out of or win that fight. Glasses, chairs, tables, pipes, bricks, bats, knives, or even guns. If it stops the fight before it even begins, letting both people walk away or at least I get to walk away, I'll bring a nuclear weapon to a fist fight. "Fair fights" are for a ring or when two people want to see who has the bigger balls and if you're comparing balls, that's kinda gay.
Gun owners know they're dealing with something that can kill. That's the purpose of it. And the overwhelming majority do their best to treat their gun(s) with the respect and fear that they deserve. 

Now without fail, someone would invariably argue about "rednecks" (the term only became derogatory a couple decades ago. Before then, it meant someone who worked outside for a living and always found a way to solve a problem, even if it was with duct tape, a garden hose, a pillow case full of goose feathers and bacon grease) who get drunk and play 'William Tell' with shotguns and these are gun owners who aren't responsible. Fair enough. In response, I give you National Socialists, aka Nazi's. They believe in the same socialist ideals as their progressive brethren, but they throw in a whole heaping of racism. All groups have their fringe elements. If you blame the whole for the fringe then we might as well truly end it all because as a species, we're no longer worthwhile keeping around.