+1, Justin! The charm of this forum is its civility, as opposed to the fora of certain other clubs and commercial endeavors catering to our ridership.
There are three topics that are inherently incendiary on a site, requiring a certain amount of restraint (even to the point of self-censorship), to wit (in no particular order): religion, politics, and guns. When an issue combines any two of the three, it becomes potentially explosive. And unfortunately, all three become intertwined occasionally here in the US (usually near election time).
My personal bias: I have a few firearms collecting dust in a file cabinet and closet. Most are antiques and oddities ranging from a Bisley in .45 Long Colt, an unusual Colt Army Special .38 (not valuable, but interesting because has a weird law enforcement stamp and no known history), and a couple .25 autos (one an Austrian OWA, the other a Colt in its original box). I don't use them, nor would I likely do so, but I wouldn't want to lose them because they were in my family.
I've read and thought about this issue, and it occurs to me that there likely are historical and sociological factors that go far toward explaining the attitude of many Americans toward guns, likely pre-dating the founding of the United States. (My own ancestry includes a number of two ethnicities that seem to be in the forefront of the ammunition controversy; knowing their origin leads to some SWAGs on my part regarding the cause(s) of this phenomenon.)
I have a retired friend who, I suspect, has at his mountaintop home a supply of small arms ammunition that would approximate the basic load of an infantry rifle company.
Enough said. As for the current ammunition brouhaha, I think the reaction is considerably stronger than the magnitude of the threat. Of course, there are political and economic interests that stand to benefit from the maximum amount of "Chicken Little" hysteria.
Of course, I might be wrong.
John
