I'm curious about how people in east Montgomery feel about guns. The stereotype about the south is that we carry pistols or rifles with us everywhere -- of course, there's also a kind of charming pistol-toting stereotype a la Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil where an eccentric older lady doesn't leave the house without her tiny revolver -- but I wonder if this is changing.

We do have a mayor who told us getting a gun and using it for home protection isn't a bad idea, and I don't know if I've met anyone from Montgomery who would disagree with that. I don't know everyone, though.

Generally, the more liberal argument against firearms is something about guns being a problem, maybe even barbaric, and if we got rid of all of them, maybe murders would go down. That kind of thought lends itself nicely to the kinds of folks who are inclined to enjoy the American Civil Liberties Union's work. Even the ACLU can't fight the Second Amendment. Officially, they remain "neutral" on the topic. Here's their statement of policy about gun control.

I think it's a little odd to say if the right to bear arms is absolute and personal (as opposed to general and collective), the government cannot limit which arms a person can bear. The ACLU says that if we do have a personal right at all, then it cannot exclude the right to bear SCUD missiles, for example.

Legal arguments, and their "slippery slopes," are fun. I don't really have an emotional response to any gun argument, but that's because the Bill of Rights makes for very strong law. To put it mildly.

This morning, I'm going out to the Gun Shoppe at Chantilly Corners to see what they have to say about it.