jshuberg wrote:I would say that generally I agree with you. Guns aren't one of the important things in life, they're what we use to protect and ensure the things that are important. Most people in the US are fortunate to never have had to use a gun to defend themselves or their loved ones, but many people have. The presence of firearms is also a deterrent to tyranny that might rob people of those things that are the most important.
When our ability to own and carry guns is threatened, our means to defend the things that are most important in life are also threatened. A free man should fight to keep his gun as strongly as he would fight for those things his gun exists to protect.
I'd say we agree, and yes, I own guns to protect myself and my family.... however, this next part goes into OUR personal beliefs.... yours and others will vary...... to us, all opinions are valid and true to each person who holds them, so no arguments, please. It's impossible to prove someone wrong who doesn't believe in right or wrong for anyone except themselves. What is right and wrong for another, we leave up to them to decide for themselves, by themselves. Just as we have done for ourselves. To each their own.
My wife and I are not so personally vested in this incarnate life as the be-all-end-all of existence. Incarnate life/existence matters to a point; however, who we are is so much more than that. To us, birth and death are merely points of transition, not beginning and end of life itself. Birth and Death are only a beginning and ending of incarnate life/existence, not of Life itself. Life is something we are, not something we have. In our opinion, often times people focus too much on the incarnate life, the "I", vs. the much larger Life that we are of the "I Am". This has nothing to do with any religious tradition, although for some in their own belief system, it might, but for us it does not. Be all that as it may, of course we'd defend our incarnate life/existence, but it's not the be-all-end-all if we don't have it either. We've learned to let go. To have detachment so nothing owns us, including attachment to incarnate life/existence. Detachment isn't about not caring or not having something; it's about so nothing has you, nothing owns you. It's just our perspective, that's all.
I think that often times people get far too wrapped up in one or a few things and they lose sight of the greater picture, the things that truly matter in life, etc, which is the point of my post.
