People at public rallies...

If ever something fit the description of a "pig in a parlor," it would be the people who take guns to public rallies. They should play "Clint Eastwood" somewhere else. (They could volunteer to take the place of a soldier who's been deployed too many times in two wars in the Middle East.)

A public forum is for voice, not for the instruments of violence and intimidation. And all the "gunslingers" I have seen on TV segments are guys, of course. Oh, a gun is macho to men who worship them. But I have always thought the more courageous people are often the ones who braved the world without the need for either weapons or violence. That certainly was the case for peaceful protestors at rallies during the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War protest days. And for people who had to carry guns, in the course of war, a lot of veterans gladly left their guns behind when they left the wars, relieved that they lived in a society of peace and civility. Even in the Old West, many towns with marshals had laws that prohibited people from bringing guns into the city limits. They didn't want cowboys at the saloon getting rowdy and dangerous with firearms. It really would be a sad day if it were common to see people carrying guns around, like the views we get from some foreign countries.

When I lived in Medicine Bow, Wyoming, a small town of less than 1,000 people, for more than a decade, there were periods of time when the town didn't have any law enforcement officers. One time for nearly half a year or more. Let me tell you, that can be a bit disconcerting for a newspaper editor who, on occasion, reports stories or writes commentaries that make some people mad as hornets. I remember one day that a group of us were talking about the fact of living 55 miles away from any police protection, and someone wondered about acquiring guns, for security reasons. A friend, with a wife and three young children, was quite definite. "No way," he answered, saying he would never ever have a gun in his house and mainly because he had children. You might think that, in having a family, his paternal instincts would rear a fearful notion. But he said statistically it was more likely that guns in homes would fall into the hands of children, with the result of tragic accidents, than be needed for the threat of an intruder.

That's true of statistics to this day. With 30,000 gun deaths and 400,000 gun assaults in America becoming the yearly totals, it is also correct that if you have a gun in your home, it is 22 percent more likely that it will kill a family member than an intruding stranger.

But it isn't much better when the show-offs with guns take them out of their homes to public rallies. They think they are sending some strange message about Second Amendment rights. There's no need to send that message, as the Second Amendment is alive and well, despite fools who try to shoot down its reach through reckless acts.

Public rallies are about the First Amendment rights to free speech and to assemble "peaceably," as the First Amendment qualifies. Who wants to go to a rally where some malcontented extremist is bringing a gun? And yes, I think you are an extremist if you are wearing a gun in public and you're not in law enforcement. It's a pig in a parlor.