I actually accepted your challenge and read your "eloquent" (your words, not mine) post. My response: tell me something I haven't heard before. Seriously, tell me how to operate the trash compactor on a navy ship or how you got drunk that time in Hong Kong and mistakenly insisted that they tattoo the chinese character for "lollipop" on your ass. (I'm just giving you a hard time because you're so damned arrogant.)

I took a firearm safety class when I was 11 years old. I shot shotguns and pistols and as a kid even owned my own 410 shotgun. I went hunting a few times, but it got to seeming not quite right to me. If it were frontier times and I needed the food, maybe it would be different. In any case, I don't begrudge responsible hunters and gun owners, even though it's not my cup of tea.

What I do get tired of is the inevitable far-fetched fantasizing that accompanies the insistence that many gun owners have that they need their guns for self-defense. I say hogwash. I've lived in urban environments for years and years since I grew up, and like practically everyone I know, I got by just fine without having a gun. There has not yet been a single incident where I would have needed or wanted one. But maybe I don't get scared that easily, I don't know.

Using similar self-defense arguments, you would be on equally firm footing insisting that we should always carry parachutes, avalanche transponders, hippopotamus repellent, snake-bite kits and full-body condoms everywhere we go. 'Cuz, ya know, anything could happen, I suppose. But the likelihood is extremely low.

So let's be honest: about the only thing that your gun protects you from is your own unreasonable sense of fear.