I am not a gun fanatic.  While I have shot and owned weapons, I don't consider myself an expert, an enthusiast or a hunter.  I got a handgun for three reasons.  One, because I can.  Two, personal safety.  Three, it's pretty fun to shoot at paper targets.  Ok, one and three are my main reasons.  I generally don't carry a gun on my person, primarily because I have no intention of going anyplace where I feel my safety is so compromised that I need a weapon.  If you break into my home with an objective to harm me or my family, I'm ready to defend them.  If I can take my husband down a notch by being a better marksman than him at the shooting range, even better.  Not to mention, it is a date where he isn't spending his time figuring out if we will be home in time to watch "The O'Reilly Factor".

I also, honestly, am a little frightened by how easy it is to get a gun if you are not a convicted felon. When I got my first handgun, I made an effort to find some appropriate training on how to use and take care of it.  I found this incredibly difficult to do.  So difficult, in fact, I didn't obtain any.  I have a friend who is a retired police officer and he gave me some very good instructions, but every time I look at my weapon I really think about how easy it is to get one and have NO CLUE how to use it.

I find this fact far more disturbing than assault weapons, "high capacity" magazines, and universal background checks.  Why doesn't anyone talk about this?  We are so focused on the wrong things here.  We live in a society that glamorizes violence in music and movies.  We allow basically any adult, regardless of their emotional health or mental capacity to obtain a weapon.  Guess what? Whether that weapon holds 6 bullets or 8 or 10 or 100, someone can use it to hurt themselves or someone else.  Does it make it better that fewer people might be killed when some nut job decides to go on a shooting spree?

It seems to me that no one wants to deal with reality here.  Guns are not going away in America.  Controlling certain types of guns is not going to have much of an impact on gun violence.  I believe the vast majority of deaths associated with firearms are with handguns anyway and they are not even up for discussion in the current political environment.  Unbalanced people should not be able to aquire weapons.  Where teenagers are concerned, their parents need to be held accountable, along with them.  People who buy guns should be required learn how to use them safely or prove that they already know how to do so. This should not be optional.  Above all, we need to instill in our fellow citizens, a respect for life and each other. There is such a greater task before us as a nation than our government seems prepared to handle.

In light of all this, maybe reason number two is my most important, just the one I least like to consider.