I'm obviously a bit hard on Marc. Honestly though I think he asks for it far more than anybody else that posts here. I did not find what he had to say thoughtful or reasonable. On the issue of guns and how to better cope with the violence that comes with them I am not particularly tolerant of statements that, in my opinion, come across as dishonest. When somebody in any way does the "A gun is just a tool." thing it irks me.

I don't blame Dale for his response to me and I don't find what he said unreasonable. Basically, I think my comments about Marc have a lot in common with the way Dale responded to me. I think we are often not just talking to or about one person but about a collection of people that seem unreasonable to us. So complaints about a lot of people get directed into comments to or about one person particularly if they seem to be saying something that seems to represent a collection of those annoying people...in my case the NRA.

I'm not a fan of the NRA. It was up to a few decades ago primarily a member organization supported by those that joined. Now it receives a gigantic amount of money from weapons manufacturers and exists primarily as a mouthpiece for them that is overrun with fear mongering kooks interested in getting the more nutty gun owners to buy more guns. Based on the numbers they do a bang up job getting that done too.