I am a crime victim, hear me roar.

I am awake and ranting this morning because...  the same poor wretch who has twice before broken into our house, tried it again a couple of hours ago. He managed to get out without my actually seeing him. I heard him, and I smelled him, but I didn't see him. I honestly wish I could have gotten a shot at him. I would not have had great difficulty pulling the trigger had I gotten a bead on him. Of course I hope I would be responsible enough to know it was the guy and not my daughter or Sheila in my sights -- statistically they are in more danger from my gun than he -- but still I have a Constitutional right to self-protection and would exercise it if I had the chance.

BUT this experience just once again makes me want to scream at the idiots in the NRA who want to set up their straw men and condemn me, the President, "liberals", parents of those babies in Newtown, and other folks who want sensible limits on the types of guns private citizens can use, background checks, and systems to track weapons used in crimes. Otherwise sensible folk among my facebook friends talk of us "confiscating" their guns, "cold dead hands," and other such excremental language.

I am a crime victim who wants the ability to defend my home, even with deadly force, from creeps who would violate it. BUT I ALSO WANT "DOMESTIC TRANQUILITY" and I did not need an assault weapon tonight. I did not need a giant clip. I do not fear a background check. And my ballot is a much better protection against tyranny than any private weapon. If you want to claim an unrestricted right to ANY weapon I don't care to hear your argument: you are, at least in that regard, an ignoramus. Not even Antonin Scalia, the most right wing Supreme Court justice of them all, supports that interpretation of the Second Amendment.

There is too much gun violence in America and we need an adult conversation about ways to reduce it.