Monday, August 3, 2009

How Can you Stand to Live There?

My friend who is a professional musician that tours the world was telling me how his fans in Singapore and Japan and China ask him about living in the United States and say, "How can you stand to live there where there are so many guns and people being murdered and all?"

My friend and I laughed and he said, "People in Asia feel about living in the United States the way Americans feel about living in Mexico and both the people in Asia and the people in America are wrong."

My friend and I agreed it is more about knowing where to be and where not to be and what to be doing and not doing in whatever country you are in.

People in other countries just look at the murder statistics and freak out about the U.S. However, those of us who actually live here know that it is all about where you are and what you are doing.

For example, I live now in one of the safest, most beautiful and affluent places on earth. I'm probably safer here than any place else I could think of on earth and I'm in America. But if I drive about 30 miles from here I might see someone shot in a gangland atmosphere on any given night or day, especially weekends. But I know not to go there so I'm safe.

Living in America is mostly about knowing that people here can own weapons and even assault weapons. But if you go into a bank the guard only has a small 6 shooter pistol usually or a glock hand gun. But when I went to India in 1985 I went into banks and the guard had a double barreled shotgun on his knee loaded and ready to blow away any transgressors there. When I went to the underground mall in New Delhi I saw men carrying loaded Kalashnikov submachine guns and this made me very nervous because all I was doing was walking by shops and all of a sudden a plainclothes person had a kalashnikov. That was spooky for me.

And yes, I've been in unusual situations with people carrying guns like the time a man was wearing a 6 gun(pistol) like out of the old west while on what he said was his mining claim and seemed very beligerant towards anyone nearby.

But the single most important thing the world needs to know about guns in America is this:"If Americans couldn't own guns the rest of the world would all be slaves and treated worse than the Jews by Hitler every day of the week. It's because America has guns that despots think twice about taking over the world. If you walk into a house in Texas and don't know the people there just expect to be shot dead. But if you walk into a house if you don't know the people in Canada people will just ask you what you are doing there. Americans owning guns is why there is freedom in the world. When Americans can't own guns you WILL all be slaves, Americans too! So, Americans right to bear arms is necessary for the world to be as free as it is. Without this there will only be slavery and nothing else.

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