I have a

question for those involved in and supportive of the

so-called Million Moms March.

Exactly

what is it about "gun violence" that makes it

more abhorrent than knife violence, baseball bat violence

and good old-fashioned hands around the throat violence?

Yes, I know

that your agenda is to put pressure on Congress to pass

more gun control laws to add to the dozens already on the

books.

And I know

that for many of you, the ultimate goal is to repeal the

Second Amendment, either through an act of Congress or

the same way you repeal many of our constitutional

rights, by ignoring them until they become irrelevant.

I know as

well that most of you don't really think gun violence is

worse than other types, but you think it can be prevented

and, therefore, are willing to do whatever is necessary

to accomplish that end.

Those are

good intentions of the highest order, and I don't mean

that to be in any way sarcastic.

But good

intentions are not enough of a reason to trample on

people's right to choose.

That's

right. What we're really talking about in the gun debate

is freedom of choice. That's a phrase I'm sure you

marching moms are familiar with.

You have

made your choice. You've weighed all the options and

decided that guns are too dangerous to have around the

house and that you're better off facing the potential

threat of a surprised burglar, an armed robber or rapist

without one.

This may

surprise you, but I've made the same choice. I don't like

guns, don't want one around. I trust my feet and a

well-developed sense of self preservation to take me away

from danger, and I pray I may never regret the choice

that I've made.

But right

or wrong, it was my choice... my decision to make. I

certainly don't think so highly of my ability to run

others' lives that I would make that choice for someone

else.

You see,

while you like to spout statistics about how many

"children" are killed by guns, you ignore the

thousands of times each day that guns are used to protect

life.

Even the

incidents in which criminals are killed or wounded by

people protecting themselves or others are not reported,

but they're rare compared to those in which criminals are

apprehended or turned away at the point of a gun without

a shot being fired.

Yes,

children are killed by guns, and yes, it's preventable...

through education and the employment of safety rules.

I said I

don't like guns and don't like to be around them, but I

have friends who have guns and I'm not the least bit

uncomfortable around them. That's because I know that

they are responsible people who know what they're doing

and they follow the rules of safety.

I've made

my choice, and they've made theirs.

So I don't

have any problem with one of the proposals being pushed

and trained. That's one I would think everybody could get

behind, from the NRA to the NAACP.

The problem

comes with the second part of that proposal - the

registration of all guns.

If the

government issues a license to John Smith indicating that

he has passed a background investigation, has taken a

safety and proficiency course and demonstrated his

knowledge of safety and his proficiency with guns through

testing, why must the government also have a list of each

gun Mr. Smith chooses to own?

The only

logical reason would be so that the government can later

go to Mr. Smith's home and confiscate all of those guns,

along with those of every other law-abiding citizen.

I know this

kind of talk frightens you marching moms, but you just

can't run away from the fact that governments do

sometimes go bad. That's why this nation's founders made

sure the right to bear arms was in the Constitution...

not just for protection from criminals, but for

protection from a government gone bad, and as additional

insurance that the government won't go bad.

Sorry, but

I can't assuage your concern that there are crazy people

out there whose definition of a "government gone

bad" would include the U.S. Government as it is

currently constituted. That's unfortunate.

But those

people, just like any other criminal, can get guns with

no trouble on the black market.

Our fear of

such people shouldn't cause us to take away the rights of

everyday, law-abiding citizens.

In fact,

that sort of reasoning is exactly how governments go bad.