Perhaps I'll never understand why the carrying of a firearm would be considered immoral. A gun doesn't have a soul, doesn't speak, doesn't do anything without the influence of one who handles it. It is no different than a samurai sword, poison, or even a nice Mercedes Benz. Though I respect your thoughts and right to express those thoughts, those suggestions that you make, ruudkeulers, are definitions of oppression, not freedom.
A gun is designed to do one thing. Kill someone or something. If you carry a gun you obviously have it to kill someone. Why do you think you have a right to kill someone? That's a definition of 'oppression' and what about the 'freedom' to go to the shopping mall or college without getting shot?
Many civilized countries have not embraced the gun culture like the US and manage to get along in their daily lives without the need to arm bears.
Maybe everyone thinks they are John Wayne. Just buy a big hat and some boots instead. It's safer for all concerned.
So far I have stayed away from this one. But Neil, you have definitely gone over the edge here. I don't know when the last time I heard such a run if irrational nonsense.
A gun is designed to shoot a bullet, or slug, or load of pellets. Unless it is a military weapon it is NOT designed for the primary purpose of killing someone. It is normally desiged for hunting, target shooting, maybe carried for self protection if a handgun, and usually with the hope and prayer that it will never be used to kill anyone.
I enjoy target shooting, and have occasionally in the distant past gone hunting. My most recent excercise with guns was going to a shooting range with some friends and murdering a couple of boxes of clay pidgeons. If you don't understand why that is fun, sorry about that. We enjoyed the challenge, and no, the group was not all men, either. I consider a lot of other people's hobbies a waste of time, but that is their business not mine. As to watching pro sports, I would as soon go get my teeth drilled.
Anyone who thinks that outlawing guns will end crime or crime in which guns are used is living in fantasyland, as others here have already said. Notice I did not say "gun crime" because there should be no such thing. There is crime committed with a gun but the gun is not the crime, itself. And that includes if an attempt is made to confiscate guns, as well. Even in countries where guns have been illegal for a long time, those in the criminal element still manage. Maybe not as easily as some other places, but they do manage to get them. Not to mention, any good metalworker with access to the tools can make one. Maybe not to the quality of Remington or S&W, but it can be done. I lived in Taiwan for 17 year and guns were illegal there and have been for a long time, but yet the gangster element still had them. They just knew for sure that no one else did but the police and military, and used that fact to their advantage. It has been very correctly said, "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."
I grew up in a time and place where just about everybody had guns in their house, and frequently with some of them regarded as display pieces, either in glass cases or hanging on a wall, and no one thought twice about it. So far as I am concerned in most cases, "I did not know it was real" is a lie. There is a significant difference between the feel of a real one and a toy. But then my father made sure I understood that when I was about 7. The second is, "I did not know it was loaded." Unless you are a Darwin Award candidate, you always treat a gun like it is loaded unless you are absolutely sure it is not, and even then you do not point it at anybody else.
And then we get back to that pasky Second Ammendment. Regardless of what you might think, having a gun is a constitutional right.
As VentureForth says, I can never understand why carrying a firearm could be considered immoral.