Paranoia slays common sense

Do you know that the government wants to take away all your vehicles? Believe it. It’s obvious because they limit the speed you drive. The fact they make manufacturers produce more efficient and clean vehicles to improve the environment tells you they don’t want you to drive at all. Next thing you know they will be keeping a list of everyone who owns a car so they can confiscate all of them. Your liberty is in jeopardy.

Thus runs the logic of the gun lobby and paranoid gun owners, as opposed to rational gun owners. Tragically, paranoia is carrying the day, fed in great part by gun manufacturers. A rifle you purchased 20 years ago still works. But if they can convince you the boogeyman is after your rifle, then you should probably upgrade to a military-style weapon to defend your first rifle. It’s your right.

Rights are never absolute, except in the eye of an adolescent. A free society balances rights and liberties for the good of all. Increasingly deadly weapons serve no one’s liberty except that of gun manufacturers to grow wealthy.

“They” is us – the people – who mostly want reasonable limits.

Larry Winters

Cheney