This has been stewing in my head for a while. School shootings, mass shootings, racist killings, and more always get me wanting to start and finish this. It took the ridiculous image of the St. Louis couple inappropriately brandishing firearms and peaceful protesters (and social media discussion about it) to get to it. The discussion around the St. Louis incident seems to boil down to basically 1st Amendment versus 2nd Amendment rights. The first seems to be clear, the protesters had the right. The local Circuit Attorney, Kim Gardner has already supported that: "I am alarmed at the events that occurred over the weekend, where peaceful protesters were met by guns and a violent assault. We must protect the right to peacefully protest, and any attempt to chill it through intimidation or threat of deadly force will not be tolerated," Gardner tweeted . So then it comes down to, was this an appropriate use of gun ownership by this couple? Is this type of event, the "Self-D