Guns: Urban vs. Rural

The DC Circuit Court overturned a 30 year-old law banning handguns in private homes in Washington, D.C. The NRA, libertarians, most Republicans, and gun-toting maniacs are celebrating, while gun-control advocates and probably Rosie O'Donnell cringe.

Personally, I can understand both sides of the gun debate...and I think the gun debate is shaped more on where people live and what guns mean in their cities, towns and neighborhoods.

I have always had pro-gun control views, and I believe that is primarily because of where I grew up...New York City. Here in The Big Apple, when a person owns a gun, it is in his or her possession for two primary reasons, either A.) To kill someone or B.) To kill someone before they can kill you. Therefore, when we see guns, we think violence, crime, murder, bad neighborhood and equate guns with evil and bad things.

Had I grown up in, say, lovely Nampa, Idaho or Grundy, Virginia, in rural country settings, I might have viewed guns differently. Here, in Nampa-like and Grundy-like parts of the country, guns are seen as equipment for a sport...hunting. (This is where I tell PETA to shutup because people have a right to hunt.) To the hunters, taking guns away is like taking hockey sticks or baseball bats away...and that would ludicrus to us. They aren't the ones murdering people (often anyway,) like the gang bngers and drug dealers in Los Angeles, Detroit, Philadelphia or South Bronx. Why should we have to go through so much to get our own gun, when it says in the Constitution we have the right to bear arms?

Perhaps it is not surprising when it is pointed out the people of Washington, D.C. don't support the court ruling. In Washington, people don't want anyone to own guns because guns to Washingtonians are instruments of death and violence, and not a sporting equpment like it is in rural America.

Perhaps, if the two sides of the argument sit down to understand each other, we can come up with some kind of common-sense solution to the gun and crime problem. In my view, in the gun debate, both sides have strong, logical opinions. Perhaps those on the left and from the urban areas should not seek to strip guns away from ALL Americans and perhaps those from the NRA and rural areas where hunting takes place should understand what guns like their's do to people in the cities. Perhaps then we will be able to see eye to eye to come to some sort of conclusion that will keep guns out of the hands of violence criminals and keep them in the hands of good, honest, decent Americans who desire to have them.

The DC Circuit Court ruling does not seem to be good for the people of Washington, but it does good for the people of Middle America who have not used guns to commit crimes and would like to own one as the Second Amendment states. I reluctantly agree with the ruling. Perhaps, there needs to be a happy medium between the two to create a law that will pass constitutional muster.