Guns in San Antonio

    Paul Burka, the senior executive editor for the Texas Monthly, wrote a piece on the Burka Blog about the impending Gun Rights demonstration in San Antonio. His commentary on the paranoid gun rights individuals was pretty good, considering he did not once refer to them as inferior to liberals or democrats. That is, he did not use many logical fallacies in his explanation about these gun-toting affairs.
    His argument is apparently pointed at politicians using fear as a tool to manipulate conservatives, and that Jerry Patterson, a person that is currently running for Lieutenant Governor, is using that to his advantage. He cites that "[paranoid gun owners] are absolutely sure that a government agent will knock on their door at any moment..." to exemplify his stand that conservative politicians will use whatever they can to get an edge. As he writes, these gun advocates' wish is to "remind ordinary citizens ... that they are allowed in Texas to legally and openly carry what are known as 'long guns'." This is fine, but Burka goes on to a sort of slippery slope argument thereafter, claiming that he "suspects" that gun owners really want to support unconcealed-gun legislation. This speculation may or may not be true. What is true is that conservative politicians will use guns as a selling point because they have to. It's economics in politics - the firm that does not maximize profits does not succeed in the business, where the market and the government collide like physics and chemistry on the atomic scale. What Burka is really saying is that as long as the fear of losing one's weapon exists, politicians will use that against the people.
    The gun culture and the drug culture have so much in common. People that depend on weapons for their hobbies will never vote for gun laws because people having weapons is the most important issue at this moment. Not whether the government just shut down and spent billions of dollars to b*tch about legislation that's already been ratified, or the fact that some people are not treated equally due to their preference of sexual activity. The truth is, people care about themselves and their immediate family - the ones they give a name to, who cook for them, clean for them, and love for them. And the hard cold truth of it all is that we have the Second Amendment so that ordinary citizens can create a militia - Against what? Against the biggest, most expensive, first-rate, and unrelenting force on the entire planet? Yeah, we call that the U.S. Military. I don't wish to admire our military, but rather bluntly explain that assault rifles don't win revolutions, especially hypothetical ones. My rant is over.