[Wag]

Many years ago, I heard a story about a kid walking down the beach with an older man. As they walked, the boy would bend over frequently and pick up one of the many stranded starfish and throw it back into the ocean, thus, saving its life.

The older man said to the boy, "Why do you bother? There are thousands of them and you can't save them all. You're efforts will never make a difference."

The boy reached down and picked up another starfish and perused it for a moment, then tossed it into the water. "It made a difference to THAT one."

The point, of course, is that we attempt to look too frequently at society at large and make our decisions based on statistics or emotion or science or beliefs or what have you.

Where we should focus our attention, though, is on individuals. If a 120 pound woman can fight off a 250 pound woman because she has a gun, THAT, my friends, is why it is worth having permissible gun laws.

Beyond the individual, there is little we can do to assume much about the effectiveness of gun laws or the lack and lack thereof. While it is anecdotal both ways, even at the individual level, try asking the woman who defended herself with a gun whether or not she was glad to be able to defend herself.

That, my friends, is where I find my answers and my peace.

--Wag--