'Stigma to gun ownership'?

I'm not even going to worry about the rabid anti-gun bias in the Associated Press's "Licensed to kill? Gunmen in killings had permits." That the mainstream media is thoroughly in the tank for citizen disarmament is old news. Nor am I going to waste my time debunking the hideous implication that because the killers had gun permits (as if it were legitimate in the first place to require permits for the exercise of an unalienable right--but I digress), they were "licensed to kill."

What I want to talk about instead are a couple more general statements made by what the article would have us believe are "experts." One of those is Jeffrey Chamberlain, an attorney and former prosecutor. He wonders why Americans "tolerate" guns:

Why are we so tolerant of having guns in this country? The answer to that is historical. We've had guns for a very long time.

Perhaps it's because we are not "tolerant" of the tyranny of citizen disarmament. He does at least seem to acknowledge that gun laws aren't going to help.

I can't think of any sweeping law change that would address that.

By "address that," I suppose he means "address the 'problem' of America's 'tolerance' of guns." In comparison to the other guy, though, Chamberlain represents the closest this article is going to get to the "pro-gun" side.

Their other "expert" is Scott Vogel, of the hideously misnamed "Freedom States Alliance." He seems to think he has uncovered the "gun lobby's" (the "gun lobby" being, of course, peaceable American gun owners like you and I) sinister agenda.

"I think you're seeing a continuing change of culture," Vogel said. "I think the gun lobby wants to take away any stigma to gun ownership."

"The stigma to gun ownership?" Let's get something straight right here and now: there is no "stigma" to gun ownership, at least among people for whom I hold enough respect to care about what they think of me. Anyone who looks down on gun owners honors me with his contempt, and absent that contempt, I would wonder what I was doing wrong.

I think they feel emboldened, like who's going to stop them?"

A blind squirrel finds an occasional acorn, a stopped clock is right twice a day, and an anti-freedom bed-wetter like Scott Vogel gets something right--who, indeed is going to stop us? We are, after all, the ones with the guns.

At the end of the article, Vogel goes back to what he and his organization do best--whining about the number of guns in the U.S.

To Vogel, the answer to why atrocities happen in places such as Binghamton, and before that Washington state and Santa Clara, Calif., lies in sheer numbers.

The number 280 million, to be precise, the estimated total of every gun in this country. [Did the author just call the same number both "precise" and an "estimated total," in the same sentence? Where does the AP get these people?]

"When you have that many guns, those guns are going to be used in horrific ways," Vogel said. "There's just too many. Inevitably, somehow, some way, those weapons are going to be used in an egregious way."

Between myself and a few friends, we account for several hundred of that "precisely" 280 million guns, and even after being around for years, they've never been used in "horrific" or "egregious" ways. But let's say you're right, Scott, and the problem is "too many guns." Who do you plan to send to collect 'em?

Suggestion--pick someone you don't like, if you can find anyone willing.