I appreciate very much the intention to have rational debate, particularly on this issue, at this time. The world is seething with violence, political subterfuge, and technological ferment. Everybody's hot button issue has been pressed, somewhere, by someone, in some terrible way.

Now, more than ever, reason must be our guideline.

I've been shot at, and threatened with firearms on multiple occasions. I have never been shot, nor ever shot anyone, but I have used firearms to defend myself and others against threat.

I grew up on an island in Alaska, where almost everyone had a firearm from youth. I knew several people that died from accidents involving firearms, and others that were murdered. I know a lot more that have used them to prevent crimes.

People die. It is inevitable. Accidents, disease, and murder eventually come for us all. It is how life ends. Every living thing will die, just as all have been born. As a result, every living thing has means of warding off death, from bark on trees, to fangs on dogs.

People have weapons. Our ability to make stuff is our defining feature. Guns are very good tools for doing what they are intended to do, which is kill. Folks that need to kill stuff pretty much find guns the best available tool for the job, unless they want to kill more than a few things at a time, in which case poisons, or explosives become more efficient.

The real issue that is being discussed when people talk about gun control is whether people should be able to defend themselves. For those that maintain we should not, I point out that it is impossible to render all people defenseless. The best that can be done is to limit defensive technology to some few.

An excellent example of society where this is done is prison. There are lots of prisons, and America shows that it is avid to imprison people, because it does so at a higher rate than any country has ever done before. There are more Americans held as slaves today than there were before the civil war, because all prisoners are slaves, forced to work.

I don't think anyone will deny that there are people behind the scenes pushing propaganda in order to gain more power, wealth, and freedom for their ilk. It is not credible to claim that such propaganda is intended to increase the ability of people to resist being enslaved, but certain the reverse is true.

Guns have been the best technology for self-defense for a couple centuries, but that is changing. The fact is that technology will make guns obsolete shortly, if it hasn't already. The groups that have most profited from concentrating wealth and power are facing development that eliminates their hold on power across the board, in every facet of their ability to enslave others to enrich themselves, and they are desperately working to create a global mechanism to prevent the dissemination of means to resist their depredations to a sufficient portion of the population to permanently relegate them to mere equality.

Guns really aren't the issue. Freedom is.

Sadly, people aren't very rational. We are all more than individuals, and people raised in solitude really aren't people. We each of us depends on society for our humanity, and some more than others. There are strong biological imperatives for us to form into packs, and we rationalize the reasons we join one pack or another after the fact.

Freedom is poorly defined, and inherently limited. Even slaves have degrees of freedom, and none of us is absolutely free to do whatever we want. Gun control debate is really about how free we should be, and since the degree of freedom desirable varies from person to person, it is not possible to decree that what is perfect for anyone is good enough for everyone.

What is possible is to allow each of us to seek to find our own perfect degree, and to prevent others from imposing their will on us. For this reason people band together to form defensive institutions, and acquire weapons.

One man's freedom is another man's slavery, and I haven't found many folks as independent as am I. Phyllis Schlafly, of the Eagle Forum, once called me ultraconservative, as I found some of their positions too restrictive socially. There is no happy medium, for me, and I suspect, for anyone. We all compromise, or suffer isolation.

Today technology has forced upon us a situation in which it is becoming possible for a tiny minority to enslave the rest of humanity permanently, and that minority is trying to do it.

Americans are perhaps the best hope of preventing this from happening, because we have the best weapons to defend ourselves, and humanity itself, from such totalitarian enslavement.

The United States government has become the worst tool of oppression the world has ever seen, but the American people yet may prevent it from being used to permanently enslave humanity, because we have guns. For the last couple decades the government here has begun enacting laws designed to end American freedom, building prisons to enslave millions (more) Americans, and ending that ability to resist the global imposition of tyranny.

Shortly, because the window of opportunity is rapidly closing, this trap will be sprung. When it does, anyone that doesn't crave life in prison will be glad that Americans, and people around the world, personally possess firearms, and the will to defend their freedom.