I grew up around guns. I was a pretty good shot -- expert with the M16, M60.

But I own no guns now. I never will.

I simply don't understand how someone can feel safer around a loaded gun. It's a fallacy to think that because you've gone through training, or that you go to the range, or whatever, that you are better equipped to handle a weapon; it's akin to claiming that you are safer walking around with a lit stick of dynamite -- just because you have done it a lot.

Which leads to why I felt so much safer in Germany. It wasn't the idea that criminals didn't have guns, it was that every empty-headed fool didn't have one. The real problem is that I am subjected to every fool's second-ammendment rights. It's not just that they can blow their own head off with their foolishness, but that me and my family are also endangered by them.

Although they may be our family, friends and neighbors; although they may be good people; they endanger us through their "rights." I would much rather live in the "danger" of a place where only criminals, police and soldiers carry weapons than to live in the "safety" of a place where any fool with a pinch of paranoia who has watched too many action-adventure apocalyptic movies can play soldier.