Gun Control

 

I’m not a gun control nut, except that I think it’s nutty that we don’t do more to keep guns outta the hands of nuts. I also think that those people who hold the Second Amendment inviolable over all but a personal communication from Charlton Heston to be nuts themselves.

I was brought up in a liberal-Democratic household in Massachusetts. All guns were bad, except of course when we were stopping Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo. And when the cops were protecting us from criminals. I got a BB gun for Christmas when I was twelve and enjoyed shooting it in the basement, but that was as high up the ordnance ladder as I expected to go.

This, despite the fact – or maybe because of the fact – that my uncle was a hunter. He shot deer and moose and other large critters. He also fished for things like shark and marlin. And he wore a .38 on his hip at his dentist office in Manhattan because once many years ago someone had stolen his nurse’s purse.

As it turned out, I did get significant experience with guns. While living in the wilds of civilization in the northern Sacramento Valley, I learned how to shoot real guns. Also how to take them apart, clean them and put them back together again. I enjoyed plinking at cans, but the only animals I shot at were a couple of rattlesnakes very close to the house. There was a dog and a couple of cats to protect, But I now sorta wish I hadn’t.

Guns are part of our American heritage and our culture, mostly with tragic consequences. Hunting on the decline, except in urban areas where gangs are better armed than ever and are giving law enforcement a difficult time.

The solution is not to outlaw private ownership of guns; that will never happen in this country, and because of so many of us living in rural areas, it probably shouldn’t. We should, however, figure out how to take away guns from crazy people and criminals and prevent them from ever getting their hands on weapons.

At some point, when we become a less fearful people, we will let our guns rust to death at the back of the top shelf of some little visited closet.

 

Home

©2008 SetonnoteS

 

.