Not presumptive at all there.
Whatever though, I'm not getting into a discussion about the 2nd Amendment. To me it's not really at the heart or really anywhere close to why people want/have guns. It's just the thin justification people can run to. Likewise, I don't think people evoke the 5th Amendment on principle either.
Politically I'm generally a pretty fringe-worthy, left-leaning person except for certain issues like gun control where I become more moderate. I would like to think most gun owners would agree with most of the ideas we've thrown back & forth, but I think the ever increasingly polarized nature of American politics fosters an environment that makes compromise increasingly difficult. I'm not sure the percentages, but there is a very large contingent of gun owners that I do not think would support gun restrictions of any form, and I believe it has a lot to do with politics.
As for me, I'm not really sure what you're getting at, re: my being "reactionary." I mean, I get what you've said, but I'm not entirely sure what could trouble you about how I view the situation. I view my approach as pragmatic instead of reactionary, though I would technically agree with that labeling. I would vote, I would call or write my congressman/senators, but I also live in a hugely democratic area (Humboldt), where the views of my representatives lean further toward gun abolition than merely restriction. Congress/Senators usually don't care what you have to say unless you can vote them out, so it does no good, for instance, to contact a West Virginian congressman to tell him I am opposed to hydraulic fracking if I live in California and they don't do it where I live.
Let me give another example, though it is also off topic. When Prop 8 passed I was living in SF and working near the Castro. After 8 passed, social organizers in SF created an idea for a protest called "Day Without a Gay." The idea was that there would be a day where all gay people around SF would "call in Gay" to work and stay home, showing people how important the LGBTQ community is to society, and hopefully creating a dialogue that would lead to the repeal of Prop 8. I was stopped on the streets of SF so a local news reporter could ask what I thought of the idea as a resident of SF. I argued that the protest was unnecessary and ill-conceived because San Francisco voted almost 90% against Prop 8, and small business at the time of the '08 recession were struggling to merely stay open, so to protest against the very people who were backing the LGBTQ community was basically preaching to the choir while hurting SF, which would not change anything in Sacramento, or the areas that held different views. If change was going to happen, the people who disagreed would need to be convinced to change their minds, not the people who already agreed, except that the protest was not going to take place in Sacramento or Orange County.
So, sorry that went way off track, but the point is there. If gun control is going to work, getting all pissed off in a gun control supporting area doesn't accomplish much, whereas states like Kentucky, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Idaho, will be the battlegrounds in convincing people that ANY gun restrictions at all should be enacted. With that, there is not really much of a lead I can take on an issue like gun control unless I sign petitions, or send money.
I'm also "reactionary" because I smoke a ton of pot... but you didn't hear that from me.
