Military Trust

   The gun lobbyists argue that every individual needs a weapon -- whether single shot or rapid-fire assault weapon -- for self defense, up to and including the need to repel foreign invaders.
   Apparently, they don't trust the Marine Corps, the  82d and the 101st Airborne Divisions of the Army, Special Forces troops, the regular army, or even the local and state police forces. Nor, for that matter, the ability of the U.S. Navy and Air Force to prevent a foreign invasion of, for example, Iowa, Kansas, or even Central Pennsylvania, much less coastal New Jersey, Manhattan, the Carolinas, the rest of the East Coast, or the entire West Coast. Not to mention intrusion from Canada, which has the world's longest undefended international border.
   As if it would be an easy matter for an invader determined to occupy America to walk through Canada without opposition and march southward into the U.S., where, according to the gun lobby's playbook, a mob of armed individuals would suddenly transform into a "well-organized force" and defeat the invaders, while the Canadian military and Mounties could not, and the U.S. Marines and Army troops would also fail.
   Therefore, the argument goes, every American must have a gun, as a patriotic duty.
   Ignored in this scenario is the fact that throughout the United States, some 80 Americans die of gun-related violence every day. And the likelihood of a foreign invasion on the ground, either from Canada or Mexico, is somewhere between slim and none.
   The defense of America is better left to the "well-organized militia" mentioned in the Constitution and organized by state and federal authorities. A foreign invasion attempted by any other country would have to be met first by Air Force and Navy personnel, and in the unlikely case of a landing, repelled by highly trained ground forces.
   Armed individuals can't do it. Leave to the professional military.
   Meanwhile, use your guns for the sport of target shooting or hunting. That's what they're designed for.