Lihle Z Mtshali: I am not a fan of guns. In fact, I hate them and I am scared of them. I have been known to hastily cross the street when I see someone with a gun on their hip.
Don't even mention those cash-in-transit guys standing in front of their armoured trucks with machine-guns. If they so much as looked in my direction, I wanted to pee in my pants.
I hate guns so much that if I had a son, I would not let him play with a toy one.
I know that gun freaks say guns don't kill people, people kill people, but my thing is that if there were no guns, nobody would be getting shot.
Sure, that sounds totally unreasonable because, with the world the way it is, there'd still be murder by other means.
But at least I would sleep better at night knowing that I wouldn't die from a gunshot wound, which, no matter how dumb it sounds, is my greatest fear.
The great thing about New York City is that mayor Michael Bloomberg is not a fan of guns either. He has made gun control one of the cornerstones of his administration and is busy making legally owning a gun and getting a permit to carry a concealed weapon in public very difficult.
That works very well for me because it means I can freely enjoy my strolls on city streets and drool over the window displays of the fancy designer stores that line 5th Avenue without worrying about rushing to the other side of the street because I've spotted a burly man in a khaki shirt and shorts with a pistol on his hip.
Two gun rights groups, the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association and the Second Amendment Foundation, are suing Bloomberg over what the city charges for a gun permit, even though he has dropped the price from $340 to between $25 and $110.
The lawsuit, which was filed this week, says: "This fee is excessive and is not used to defray administrative costs, and hence it impermissibly burdens the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms."
They also complained about New York being one of only two states where you require a permit to keep a gun in your own home.
Since these gun rights groups seem to be behind the curve on changes, I hope they never find out about the proposed stringent changes to the New York Police Department's handgun, rifle and shotgun permit procedures, which will make it even harder to own a gun legally in the city.
You can forget about getting a gun permit from the NYPD if you have ever been arrested for any crime or violation in any state; if you were dishonourably discharged from the US armed forces; have a history of domestic violence; have a poor driving history; if you were ever fired from your job "under circumstances that demonstrate lack of good judgment or lack of good moral character"; if you have ever been institutionalised for the use of a controlled substance or dagga; if you have not been paying your child support, fines and taxes; and a host of other reasons - 19 in total.
Bloomberg says 34 Americans are murdered with guns every day. I wonder if the bulk of those gun murders happen in New York.
You would swear you could easily buy a gun at the corner store here, because whenever you turn on the five o'clock news, there is a story about someone being shot in Brooklyn or Queens or The Bronx or somewhere in New Jersey.
And obviously if they make the news, it's almost always an upstanding member of the community or a cop who's been shot.
Illegal guns are a big problem here, and maybe that should be Bloomberg's next big fight.
So, being as scared as I am of guns, when my friend Musa, who recently moved to South Korea, told me that country was gun-free and not even the police were allowed to carry guns, images of me packing up and relocating there danced through my mind for a whole minute.
But then she told me how strange just walking down the street is as a black person over there - they want to touch your hair, take pictures with you and - OMG! - they even ask to touch your bum, saying: "Oooh, it's nice".
I'm staying here, thanks.