Odd how I've never felt a need to keep firearms.

@Willow_Wisp Odd or appropriate, I wonder?

@Willow_Wisp Personally, I think those who have them think they are safe with them. They are not, if someone wants you dead they just shoot you, no one is going to call you out of the bar for a quick draw in the streets.

@dalefvictor LOL, the quick draw, a bastardization of dueling rules among gentlemen. The quick draw was never staged as Hollywood portrays. It was all about getting the drop on the other guy or pure adrenalin grab for a weapon when surprised. Would any of you keep your back turned to a man determined to shoot you as they count off the paces, or wait until the church bell strikes noon? Hollywood fiction. It has always been gangster.

@Willow_Wisp But it makes for an amazing movie. Anyone who hasn't seen The Quick and the Dead should put down their phone right now and watch it.

@JeffMurray @Willow_Wisp Cinematic but not realistic.

For a much grimmer and more down-to-earth deconstruction of the "gunfighter" mystique, I've always preferred Unforgiven; not only for Little Bill's ruthless tearing down of "the Duke of Death's" ("Duck, I said" ) self-aggrandized image as a gentleman gunslinger, when his true history is a backshooting drunk, but also because it unabashedly looks at the effects of violence on everyone involved. Almost everyone in the film either is, has been, or becomes a victim in some way, and many fall into all three categories. Some, like Will Munny (Eastwood), are self-aware enough to realize it, which is why he tried so hard to change himself. "I'm not like that no more."

@Paul4747 Those were people caught up in situational trauma, just like everyone I've ever known. My father did four combat tours, two in Korea and two in Vietnam. Think of Big Red from that 70's show but actually scary in that wild eyed southern boy style that tell minorities to go back where they came from and tells his kids that we were replaceable, he brought us into the world and he could take us out and make another just like us. Yep, War caused that boy to flip the lid on his think bucket and everyone that knew it was to scared to talk. My biological mother kept watch on me through my Aunt, it took her 26 years to finally make contact with me. He had taken me from her when I was three at gunpoint, but the police were never called.

@Willow_Wisp That was supposed to be a sad face... where did those go?

@Paul4747 At this point I've worked through it all, but it helps to sometimes state my circumstances. There were far to many years I couldn't express it, even in print. It's not like it can change.