What is it with you gun lovers? (And I feel as though I am asking the minority of Americans).
You cling to the Second Amendment as though it were written yesterday; it was written 228 years ago, and back then, the “arms to bear” were single-shot rifles or pistols. What if the amendment stated: “Only single-shot arms allowed”?
Even I would approve of that, and I hate guns. Why do any of you need a automatic rifle?
How anyone can find “beauty in a well-designed and manufactured rifle or pistol” is beyond my comprehension. There is absolutely no beauty is a “manufactured and designed” device, that, when loaded with a powered projectile, is capable of the destruction it can administer.
Oh, I forgot! It’s not the gun that kills?
A few years ago, President Obama attended a town hall meeting in a city that has laws on the book, allowing one to carry a loaded gun. (Portsmouth, N.H.). A man there attended this meeting with a pistol and holster strapped to his leg. Do you suppose he felt threatened by The President being there? (“Is The President gonna pull out a gun and try to shoot me?”)
Why teach a 12-year-old how to shoot a automatic rifle, or any other powerful weapon?
(If she rolls her eyes at you, give her the water pistol and she will be much happier.) You don’t know the memories that might cling to a child, when the child is taught unordinary teachings. I’ve never been to a gun range, but I would assume that, once the firing is completed, that you examine your target to review, not the damage done to the target, but your accuracy. You would not want any student to see the damages that these same type bullets could inflict upon flesh and bone; even the news media won’t show us the horror of it all.
When I was a child, a father in our neighborhood thought he heard a burglar in the middle of the night, and he took his loaded pistol from beneath his pillow, and killed his only son. You could hear the mother crying throughout the neighborhood. She cried for three days and three nights. And I cried too.
One of my best friends loved guns, and he had a locked gun rack cabinet in his home. His young son learned how to “pick the lock,” and killed himself. The guns and gun rack are no longer in my friend’s home.
After completing my four years in the US Air Force, I started college, under the GI Bill.
After the first quarter, I went home that weekend to visit my parents. Looking through the closet, I found the trusty old BB gun that I had as a young boy. With nothing better to do, I went for a walk in the woods behind our home. I spotted a bird in a tree, aimed, and pulled the trigger.
The bird fell to the ground. I walked over to examine my “kill,” and picked up the lifeless body of what had been a beautiful woodpecker.
Immediately I asked myself, ”Why?” I buried the bird, took the rifle home, smashed it to pieces, and put it in the garbage can.
Since that time, I have fired no weapon, not even a sling shot. No guns are in my home. I can still laugh, though, at fun with a water pistol.
I must agree that a deranged individual who has thoughts of causing bodily harm to others has more than guns as his weapon of choice; but we should at least start the framework of trying to make the gun less popular for these sick people. The Coalition To Stop Gun Violence would be the place to start.
Hugh Buchanan
Peachtree City, Ga.
