Live By the Sword

Sometimes I travel to foreign countries, and there is always one thing that completely puzzles the people -- America's relationship to guns. You can't imagine trying to explain to some European professor the fact that Americans will never give up their right to own guns. I try to explain to them that the idea is that citizens can defend themselves from tyrants, and they look at me like, what do you think is going to happen? Do you think the tyrant is going to come to your door? And what about all the people who get murdered with guns in America -- you're always shooting each other! It's just one of those things, we will always have the right to bear arms, guns will always be dangerous, but there's something inherently American about it.

I remember driving into a city in China at night, the sidewalks were crowded with shady-looking characters and I asked my translator, "Is it safe to come here at night?" "Yes, it's safe," he said, "Guns are illegal in China." And I thought, right, so only outlaws have guns. But in fact, nobody has guns. He did say you have to watch out for pickpockets, but nobody will pull a gun on you because there just aren't any. It was a hard concept to adjust to.

Lately we have seen some nutty people showing up at President Obama's events with holstered guns. When asked , "Why are you carrying a gun?" the stock answer is "Because I can." I'd be pretty sure you couldn't carry a gun to a G.W. Bush event, but nobody ever tried so we don't know. You could not wear anti-war t-shirts, I know that, I doubt that a pistol would have been welcome either.

So up in Pennsylvania there was a mom who wore a holstered pistol to her daughter's soccer game. My kids are older now, but I remember some parents at the games who were ... scary, even without weapons. At one point our team almost forfeited a game because one dad was ranting at the umpires and you didn't know if he was going to blow a gasket or what. I can't imagine what he would have done if he'd had a weapon strapped to his leg.

Last October this mom, Meleanie Hain, a friendly-looking blond in her early thirties, made the news when she brought a gun to her daughter's soccer game. The local sheriff revoked her permit to carry a weapon, she took them to court and won.

She's dead now.

Meleanie Hain, the pistol-carrying Lebanon mom who received national attention for taking a loaded gun to her daughter’s soccer game, was shot to death Wednesday night with her husband in an apparent murder-suicide, police said.

Hain, 31, and her husband, Scott, 33, were pronounced dead by Lebanon County Coroner Dr. Jeffrey Yocum shortly after 8:30 p.m. at their home at Second Avenue and East Grant Street, police said.

The couple’s three children were home at the time and were not injured, and are staying with relatives and friends, police said.

Autopsies were scheduled for Thursday, police said. No other details were available at press time.

Neighbor Mark Long said Meleanie baby-sat his 3-year-old son and that she and Scott had been having marital problems for the last week. Scott left on Tuesday and Meleanie did not know where he went, but he came back Wednesday, Long said. Gun-toting soccer mom is shot dead

This article goes through the whole history of the case, the pistol-packin' soccer mom and all the court rulings.

It's a difficult thing, you can't say you really have a right unless you exercise it. Take freedom of speech, you can say you've got it, but if some Nazis or Klan guys want to have a parade and the government doesn't allow it you really don't have that freedom. Same thing, you have the right to bear arms, and so some crazy person wants to bring guns to a kids' soccer game or to the President's talk, well you have to let them. It's one thing to own a gun, to hunt, to defend yourself, whatever, it's a whole other thing to be an offensive idiot about it, endangering everyone around you, just because you can. And there is no way to write a law that gives you the freedom to make smart decisions and stops you from being dumb. If you want freedom, you have to accept the freedom to do stupid and obnoxious things.

You wish these people had centered their lives around something a little more peaceful, they wouldn't be dead now.