Artful Dodger:

> Of course you can teach responsible gun ownership. Thousands do it all the time. And since we have the Constitutional right to own guns, that's the best you're gonna get. You won't get rid of guns with extreme examples of abuse. That happens in many siituations. You don't limit freedoms because of the abuse of a few.

The truth is that Americans love their guns. It is why the USA has one of the highest per capita rates of gun ownership in the world. 99.99 % of the population are responsible. There is the odd psychopath or sociopath that commits horrendous crimes.

Some day it will cause problems. If there is ever real austerity measures then there will be rioting, and violence will follow. Americans are not used to scarcity of resources or money any more.

To me it seems a big contradiction that some defenders of gun ownership claim to be good Christians. They seem to think that it is OK to hold a gun with one hand and a Bible with the other hand. Sarah Palin comes to mind, with the Christian rethoric and the NRA suppor It is a contradiction because Jesus never carried any weapons. He never condoned the use or possession of weapons. But then we as human beings are very good at contradicting ourselves.

I know it is stupid to suggest that children should learn gun use in schools. I say it because if we keep saying that learning to use guns will make children defenders of freedom in the future, then it would make perfect sense to formalize that training. Nobody would like to see that in schools and we somehow assume it is OK to do it at home. We assume all parents who own guns are equipped to teach their children properly.

In a perfect world there would be no guns, no violence, no crime, no wars, etc. We use the imperfect nature of the world to condone our own violence and to toss aside our most cherished values. It is why the contradiction between Christian values and gun use arises.

Eventually something will have to give because all those guns will become a problem if scarcity of resources or austerity measures put pressure on our social structure. We see signs of this in the rioting in Greece, Paris, London, the old LA riots, etc. The we will see our police moving in with lethal force against rioters armed to the teeth. It is a scary thought.