I support the 2nd Amendment and the right to bear arms. I believe the idea behind the 2nd Amendment is to give citizens the means and ability to resist an oppressive government and to protect themselves and family against danger, whether its a wild animal (unlikely these days), criminal elements or other things. It's my belief that every human being has the right to protection and security.
Realizing that the 2nd Amendment to bear arms is an American controversy, I'll cite the
United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. While it explicitly doesn't sanction the ownership of a weapon (very interesting what's not included!), it does say that we all have the
right to security of person and Article 16 explicitly talks about everyones right to raise a family. By implication, a part of the duties in raising a family would be protecting the family, so keeping a weapon for family safety should be acceptable in any country, whether the police forces are competent or not.
Article 3.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Now, I'm sure its a common argument by proponents for gun owners to say that we need guns to resist anything the government may do. The proportionality of force between a national army who has tanks, artillery, rocket launchers, bombs, aircraft carriers, nuclear missles, etc. compared against the effectiveness of a citizen armed with an assault rifle to resist the oppressive governments is almost absurd. Should we even the playing field by giving common citizens access to tanks, artillery, shoulder fired rockets, etc? The answer is pretty obvious. So an advocate for gun control would argue that the armed citizen is ineffective against an armed government oppressing its citizens, so why not just completely disarm the citizens? They're powerless anyways, right?
The wrong time to realize you need a gun is when you don't have one. Guns are like auto insurance in some ways. You don't buy a gun expecting to get into a gun fight, just like you don't buy car insurance expecting to get into an accident. If you DO get into an accident, or someone DOES break into your home threatening your family, it's the wrong time to think about protection. You either have it or you don't.
In the not so distant past, Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans. The aftermath of the hurricane was complete lawlessness and chaos. How did people protect themselves and their families from armed gangs of looters when the police departments couldn't be relied on? Guns of course! To be fair though, the looters wouldn't be armed with guns if we didn't have guns in America. They would have had something else, perhaps baseball bats or knives. Weapons none the less.
In Iraq, a country which is ravaged by multiple factions of insurgents, it is very dangerous for average Omar and his family. I once spoke to an Iraqi translator who said that he can't sleep at night unless he has an AK-47 to protect himself and his family. He lives in REAL FEAR, nothing most of us have ever experienced. You never know if you're going to be dragged out into the street and shot in the middle of the night. At least with an assault rifle to protect himself and his family, he has some semblance of a chance against any lawless death squads.
On the flip side, even the insurgents are justified in having guns as a means to resist what they don't want in their country. I condemn violence as the best means to an end, but I'd be hypocritical in saying that our country doesn't use violence and force to get our way.
Now, fast forward to today. This school shooting in virginia is the most deplorable act of violence possible. It's lower then terrorism. To call this shooting "terrorism" (watch, it'll happen somewhere) is to give it more credit and legitimacy then it could ever deserve. It is the lowest of the low. At least with terrorism, it has a purpose driven by desperation. This is killing for the sheer sake of killing, to kill as many people as possible before dying. I would be willing to bet that it was premeditated too. I can only make guesses at the truth...
What a sad, sad tragedy.