[Vision2020] guns and intimidation

[rhayes at frontier.com]

Last year at a Tuesday Grower's Market a guy stood at the door of the Co-Op with a pistol on his hip doing his open carry thing. His arms were crossed in obvious defiance, and the look on his face was not pleasant. To get in to the store, I had to make my way around him, and I can tell you honestly that I was intimidated, just as I am sure he intended me to be. Given how much gun violence there is in this country, anytime I see someone with a gun in public I immediately become vigilant and nervous. 
Is this the sort of world you want? 
By the way, since 1980 over 1,057,000 people in the U.S. have been killed by gun violence. 
What I, and the majority of Americans are suggesting is a conversation on how best do we address this carnage. More guns is not the answer. 
It will take courage to bring a meaningful and positive change to our culture of violence and machismo. And courage is not found in our trigger fingers, but in our hearts and minds.     
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20130405/f70bd4eb/attachment.html>