"Why Do You Own A Gun?"

I have been asked this question a few times and always welcome it. Some firearm owners may feel attacked and answer with a simple, "It's my constitutionally protected right." They're correct... but that doesn't do much to educate an interested party that perhaps has never even seen a firearm. I certainly don't think that owning firearms is for everyone. There's a tremendous amount of responsibility involved. You must receive training. You must make sure that they are always under your control. (Please note that the latter isn't a statement of support for legislating mandatory trigger locks or mandatory disassembly that has become fashionable by today's anti-gun lobbyists.)

So why do I own firearms? I provide an ordered list below based on the probably frequency of actually using one. After seeing the list, I find it interesting that the reverse order represents the "big picture" of why the Second Amendment and personal firearm proficiency is important... even if the reasons seem unlikely.

1) Enjoyment - It's a lot of fun to go to the range. I've seen rabid anti-gun people begrudgingly go to the firing line and return with a big smile on their face. Once you have the safety and responsibility aspects of firearm usage drilled into you, it really is an enjoyable sport. The experience can also be very therapeutic. For the same reason people enjoy playing golf or going bowling, the shooting sports allow you to master a difficult skill and take pride when you hit all bullseyes, shoot 25/25 on the trap pad, or destroy that milk jug at 300 yards. I also really enjoy the historical aspect of it. I've recently started collecting military surplus rifles. For every firearm that I consider obtaining, I spend hours upon hours researching the history of it - where it's from, how it's different from others, significance of the skirmishes it was used in, etc.

2) Self Defense - I won't get into all of the statistics and facts at this time about how competent and law-abiding citizens that carry a handgun for personal protection lower crime rates on a grand scale. For now we'll focus on the personal aspect that bad guys rape and murder every day and I don't know what I'd do if something happened to my family and I wasn't prepared to have the chance to protect them. Criminals by definition break the law. That's why they're criminals. Gun control legislation only affects the law-abiding. Someone that knows the consequences of robbing a bank or murdering someone and decides to do so anyway isn't going to listen to a law that limits magazine capacity to ten rounds or prohibits certain types of grips on a rifle.

3) Protection of our Freedom - After average citizens defeated the world's most powerful military in the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers realized that every single established government in the history of mankind has eventually trampled on the rights of its citizens. The Second Amendment was added to try and prevent this from happening to us. The most oppressive governments in the world enacted civilian gun bans to maintain their power over the people. Hitler did it. Stalin did it. Whoever is in charge of the Sudan did it. It does seem ludicrous to think that the United States could erode to that point. It seems just as ludicrous to argue that American citizens with pistols and shotguns could take on B-2 bombers and smart missiles. Even if it seems unlikely, that threat of citizens not tolerating tyranny must still be maintained. After all, there are recent examples of civilian victories over modern armies. Castro did it in Cuba. The Afghans did it to the Soviet Union. And the Vietnamese did it to us.

So... why don't you own a firearm?