It is time for a national conversation

The Sandy Hook shootings: It is time for a national conversation | Washington Times Communities

I know, you're tired of reading my 'slanted' opinions vis a vis gun control vs "do it for the children". Still, I think it's worth one more SMALL effort to exemplify the way the left is politicizing this tragedy.   This little bit is in response to, and generally formated as the author of, this Washington Times Communities opinion article (see link above).

In the wake of the tragic slaughter of innocents at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, it is not too soon for a national conversation about guns. The biggest question before us is why such horrible weapons of mass violence such as the Glock 9mm and the Sig Sauer are sold to the public. Guns like this make it easier and faster to kill lots of people with just one gun; think then of the damage two assault weapons can inflict. Already the country is talking about gun control and putting teeth into our existing laws. It is time for politicians to quit being ostriches and confront this important national issue. And it’s time for President Obama to step up and lead the way. This is the time for responsible gun owners to stand up for real licensing requirements. 

 Nice Lady, we have already had a National Conversation About Guns.  We called it "The Constitutional Convention".  During that process the autocratic impulses of reigning politics were hamstrung by a people who didn't want their government telling them how to live their day-to-day lives.   The results of that National Conversation was that We The People didn't like it when King George locked up their firearms in an armory.   So if you want a national conversation about private ownership of firearms, you need to accept that many participants are going to vehemently disagree with your opinion. 

Here's my contribution to the Conversation:

"Horrible weapons of mass violence"?  When you say that, I think "Crack Cocaine".  I think about automobiles which kill tens of thousands of people a year ... and I imagine the violence that alcohol addiction imposes on families, and I think about Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.

I think about Cancer,  to whom I lost my Significant Other; I think about Heart Disease, to whom I lost my father.  I think about surgical procedures gone wrong, to whom I lost my Mother..  I think about nine-eleven, and wars, and occasionally (and most recently) I think about the mental disease which has become so terribly prevalent in our country since we closed all the mental hospitals and turned those crazy people out in the streets to beg on the corners of our urban centers with their cardboard signs and their stored hatred.  I think about street gangs, drugs, racial hatred.  I think about welfare, socialism which reduces Good People to governmental dependency just to feed their children.

Gird your armor and talk about the random violence, the disintegration of socity and of families caused by all of these societal ills.  THEN compare them to the 'gun violence' which is practiced by people who are NOT part of those 'communities'.

I think you are aiming your vitriol against (what you may perceive as) a relatively small 'community' of people who don't think that "Guns Are Evil"  And I think about the Second Amendment is NOT about "hunting" but about "Defense".

"Defense" includes not only defending your home, your family and your possessions against the predations of "anti-social predators", but against "all enemies foreign and domestic".  In 1968, a week after I was married, I took an oath to protect my country against those entities.  I've completed my military service, but my oath still stands.  Have you taken such an oath?  If not, then perhaps your moral ascendency is slightly tarnished.

And YOU have the nerve to suggest that I should be deprived of the means to defend my home?

I don't think much about the Glock; and although the Sig Sauer is a fine pistol, I don't choose to own one.  And no, I don't own The Evil AR15.  I do, however, own several pistols, rifles and shotguns.  None of them have EVER been pointed at a person, and most of them have never been pointed at anything more offensive than a paper or cardboard target.  In fact, I've almost given up hunting;  I can buy beef at 10% per pound of the price of a deer hunt, and since I'm old and lazy, hunting has not the same appeal to me as it once did.

So most of my firearms are memorabilia of a more active period in my life.  I have them to remind myself of when I was younger, and more active; and I also keep them out of respect both for the fine machinery, and for my father who built many of my firearms from "common clay".  (He was a craftsman as a stock maker and a gunsmith.)

And YOU have the nerve to suggest that I should give up these sentimental, these historic firearms?

Lately, which is to say for the past 20 years, I've been amusing myself by competing in pistol competition.  Even after all these years of practice, I admit that I'm still not very good at it.  But it provides me some time to meet with my friends (who share my perverse choice of amusement) and the sheer joy of trying to hit the center of a cardboard target 'at speed" is .. while rarely rewarding in terms if "bragging rights", is still high in the adrenalin rush of an old man who wants to prove to himself that he 'still has it'.  (Even if we all know he really doesn't.)

And YOU have the nerve to suggest that I should give up one of the last physical activities, and social events, which are still available to me?

One of these days, I will die.  When that happens, my children and their spouses will have to decide who gets what.  I derive some pleasure in imagining how they will fight over the .22-250 Varmint Rifle with the Oregon Rock Maple Stock, and the STI Edge 10mm Pistol with the 18-round magazines, and even the lowly Taurus  Model 85 in .38 Special, and the upper-end Taurus Model 65 in .357 magnum with the four inch barrel.  I spend my idle moments (not that frequently, but occasionally) thinking of my Navy son and his irish brother in law arguing about who gets what ... and the daughter and the step-daughter breaking in to say that the 85 or the P3-AT are "just right for them".  And I laugh, because I know that the odds that I can look down from heaven and enjoy their good-natured conflict.


And YOU have the unmitigated gall to suggest that this small, simple pleasure of an old man should become nothing more than a pipe dream?


While I do realize, and accept, that all of these concepts of firearms being both an intensely personal relationship (yes, I know, you think I'm just another "Gun Nut" ... my father taught me 40 years ago to understand that this is not a term of approbation, but an honor) are anathema to you, I don't think that YOU understand that YOUR attitude is equally distasteful and insulting to me.

You seem to believe that no man or woman can own a woman and not succumb to the succubus of slaughter which is incarnate in The Evil Gun.

You seem to believe that anyone who would willingly say, in the face of Modern Media Coverage, that "I Love My Guns", is some sort of deranged Neanderthal.  You think that I consider my firearms an extension of my penis, and that my entire being (including 'sexual') is wrapped up in my guns.  It's like owning a big car .. it must be some kind of some kind of compensation for having a small penis, plus I can't get girls.  My late Significant Other must also have penis envy, because she enjoyed shooting pistols in competition, also.

The point is, you have no idea what variety of ways are available to people who enjoy the shooting sports.  Competition, plinking, hunting ... all are common means by which people (not just the perverts and wanna-be assassins  which you seem to imagine populate the gun owners of America) have made firearms ownership a billion dollar industry in this country.

All you see is a sick obsession with firearms.  And you immediately and unthinkingly conflate that enjoyment with the sick f*cks who break into a school and kill little children.

Shame on you.

Shame on you for making the 'intuitive' connection.  You didn't think it through.  You see the Gun; you don't see the people.

You see the potential for violence; you don't see the people. Sane,  down-home people who just want to have fun with their friends.  Without drinking, without anger,  Just clean, SAFE competition .. or hunting, of course.

Most of my friends have guns, and they use them to hunt, in competition or just to plink at tin cans.  When they shoot, they don't see "people".  They don't want to hurt anyone.  They just enjoy that shooting guns at targets is liking throwing darts at a target; only without the intoxicants, but usually with the bonhomerie of sharing an amusement with friends.

Well, there's the loud noises, of course; you don't get that with Darts.  Bud DAMN!  It's not often that you have to wear earmuffs when you're throwing darts!

I look forward to your next article, when you skewer tavern dart-throwers because they obviously have 'skewer issues' and other forms of penis envy.



Oh, by the way; this is what I all "a national conversation".