Confessions of a Deathbeast � hellinahandbasket.net

Confessions of a Deathbeast � hellinahandbasket.net:

Everybody who shoots knows what I’m talking about. You see it in their eyes, their expression. All of a sudden you’re not a person but a dangerous beast that might suddenly lash out and kill everyone around you. A Deathbeast.

(h/t to Kevin over at Smallest Minority)

Money Quote:

Every so often you see an item in the newspaper about some nutbag who shoots up a bunch of innocent and unarmed people. Talk to someone like me and they’ll tell you that they wish they had been there. We wish we were in the same room with the nutter, the guy who has a weapon and is desperate to hurt people.
By any reasonable criteria this is completely insane. We’re fantasizing about putting ourselves in harm’s way, about allowing someone to shoot at us! This is hardly a sound strategy to a long and healthy life.
This isn’t because we want to kill someone and the nutbag shooter provides a chance to do it in a legal way. Instead we want to stop the violence before some innocent person dies.

No, we're not talking about rabid-eyed wannabees.  We're talking about people who actually take responsibility for their fellow man.  People who look at the news reports of shopping-mall shooters, and think: why wasn't there someone there to protect them?

Good question.

Why not?



Gun free zone = target-rich environment, for the nut-baggers who are the ones who really get off on the Slaughter of the Innocents.

----

People see people who shoot guns for a variety of reasons, and automatically lump them all together with the  Slavering Beast.

Not one person in ten can bear to look at a law-abiding citizen who owns a gun without seeing A Bad Person.  At Thanksgiving a couple of years ago, I was rocking my grand-daughter and I was reminded that I was wearing one of my USPSA shirts when she looked at the monogram of a shooter on my chest and without a though she said: "oooh .. Bad Man!"  She saw the figure of a man with a gun, and automatically assumed he was "A Bad Man".  (I know, I've told this story before.)

I own umpteen guns, and none of them have ever been pointed at a person ... except for the hunting rifles, they haven't been pointed at a living creature.  And yet, my grand-daughter automatically assumes that holding a gun makes me a Bad Man.

Can't blame her; in San Diego, where she lives, that's an attitude which defines Survivors.   But in my world, a world of responsible gun owners, the man with a gun is usually a Good Person who just wants everybody to go home at the end of the day and tell his wife: "Oh, nothing special.  Just another good day" after a typical shooting match.

I don't know what it will take to transform this public perception from "bad man" to "good man" .. or woman.  I wish I knew what to do.

All I can do here is preach to the choir. But it's not enough.

I just wish that someone would recognize that most of the people in America are responsible; they shoot because of many reasons, but none of those reasons involve harming anyone.

We are not drug-runners.  We are universally appalled by the idea of hurting anyone.

We are the responsible gun owners of America.