My Conversation With Gun Nut Regarding Newtown

I've had an ongoing debate with my gun-nut neighbor, and, incredibly, the slaughter of 20 Newtown children has not changed his mind. Here's how it went Saturday morning: ME: "After what just happened you can't possibly object to the ban of assault weapons." GUN NUT: "I can and do. If the government can ban assault weapons, what's next--hand guns?" ME: "The old slippery slope argument, huh? The same logic you right-wingers use to ban gay marriage. If gays can marry, what's next--legalization of bestiality? What does one have to do with the other?" GUN NUT: "The Second Amendment protects my rights to own any gun I want." ME: "The Second Amendment refers to militias, citizen armies, not private citizens. And there were no assault weapons in the 18th century." GUN NUT: "What if someone breaks into my home, and I don't have a gun?" ME: "Statistics show that it is 1000 times more likely that someone in your own family will accidentally kill himself with your gun, than it is that you will kill a home invader. It is also 10,000 times more likely that a deranged or unbalanced person will get a hold of your gun and kill innocent people, than it is that your home will be invaded." GUN NUT: "I don't care what the stats say." ME: "But don't you have any compassion for those poor children who were slaughtered at that school in Connecticut? We've sent men to the moon and invented a polio vaccine. Surely we can protect the most innocent and vulnerable among us." GUN NUT: "Not if it means banning weapons." ME: "So, your right to have an assault weapon is more important than a child's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" GUN NUT: "It's guns that gave us that right." ME: "Huh? What kind of logic is that?" GUN NUT: "Without guns we can't protect ourselves from mad men like the one who shot up that school." ME: "You mean the children should have been armed?" GUN NUT: "No, but the faculty and administration could have been" ME: "Are you insane? That's not civilization, that's the wild west." And so it goes. Gun nuts and the NRA now have the blood of children on their hands. Columbine, Aurora, Portland, Atlanta, Virginia Tech, Milwaukee, Newtown. The bodies are piling up, and there is no end in sight.