Split Decision: Would you ever keep a gun in your home?

As school shootings, mass shootings, and general shootings continue to happen with alarming regularity, the same talking points keep getting brought up again and again.

I won’t rehash them here.

Except for one, and there’s reason: The idea of being allowed to carry a weapon around.

In New Jersey, good luck. Concealed carry permits are given out about as often as leap year birthday cards. It just doesn’t happen.

But federal lawmakers are currently exploring a bill that would make carrying a gun legal in states even where carrying a gun is illegal. In short: You have a concealed carry permit in Kentucky and get caught with a gun here in New Jersey? Not only do you get out of jail free, you don’t even go to jail. It would simply be legal.

Which would put us New Jerseyans in a weird place: We wouldn’t be allowed to carry guns, but our visitors could. Makes no sense. And while I’d like to blink my eyes and watch all guns magically vanish, I also recognize that ain’t happening. We are never getting rid of guns in America. Never, full stop. If real, meaningful gun legislation didn’t happen after Sandy Hook, it’s not going to happen.

So it wouldn’t surprise me if New Jersey one day finds itself in a “if you can’t beat them, join them” kind of situation and makes it easier for otherwise law-abiding citizens to carry a firearm with them.

And if that were to happen, I’d be tempted to strap one on my ankle or wherever one straps a gun.

I don’t want to, but if others were doing it, I’d feel like I’d be putting myself and my family at a disadvantage. If everyone has a gun and I don’t, and things go south - a break-in, an angry driver, some random loon, a heated argument - then where am I? I’ll tell you where - six feet under.

For whatever reason, many people in America think the answer to guns is more guns. I think this is insane. Clearly, the answer is fewer guns. Every study ever bears this out.

But I’m becoming an increasingly lone wolf on this subject. So yeah: I hate guns, but I’d probably get one if everyone else was. I’d be foolish not to.

I hate guns, but I’d probably get one if everyone else was. I’d be foolish not to.