I submit to you a request; that we remove the phrase “gun rights” from our vocabulary and replace it with the more human, and more accurate, “gun-owner rights.”
The First Amendment does not guarantee rights to printing presses as machines; it guarantees the rights of people to use printing presses, radios, televisions and the Internet without restriction.
The Second Amendment guarantees no rights to guns themselves, as they are mere machines. However, it does guarantee the right of the people to keep and bear them.
The psychology behind what may appear as a minor ‘grammatical nit’ should be clear.
It is relatively easy for most people to hate an object. You can make up lies about an object, demonize an object and attempt to regulate and control objects. You can do so without fear of insulting the object, hurting its feelings, being sued by the object or facing any repercussions, it’s just a defenseless, soulless object.
When we replace gun rights with gun-owner rights, however, the issue becomes personal. Where many people and politicians [as opposed to people] find it easy and guilt-free to demonize guns as objects, it is far more difficult to for them to demonize a large segment of the population, gun-owners, as people.
Laws can not control inanimate objects, only what law-abiding persons do with those objects. Therefore, it's technically not gun control, or a war against guns, it's gun owner control, and a war against gun owners.
So let us end this futile battle for so-called, non-existent gun rights and gun control, and renew the charge in support of the very real and very important rights of the people who own defensive and recreational firearms.
The Eggman
March 10, 2010
Enough about "Gun Rights" already!
http://www.the-eggman.com/
[I agree with him but I think that horse has already left the barn. Just like people calling a "magazine" a "clip" and to a less extent "cartridges" "bullets". I still sometimes use the phrase "gun owner rights" but in my old age I'm getting weary of fighting battles I don't believe I can win.--Joe]