It seems as though everywhere you go there's always someone talking about how bad guns are and how no-one should be allowed to have them. Most of these people weren't brought up around firearms and only know what they learned from the public school system and what they hear from watching the media outlets. It's as if no-one is capable of investigating the subject matter on their own. Why have we allowed the U.S. to become a nation of people so unwilling to think for themselves?
One issue is there are a lot of parents who are unwilling to take the time to check in on the education their children are getting at school or from anywhere else for that matter. They are too busy to talk with their kids and find out what they're being taught and correct any misguidance they have picked up along the way. Shame on those parents. Ultimately our responsibility as parents to ensure that our children understand the truth about (and where we stand on) the subject of guns as well as any other subject matter they are being taught by others.
I know I'm preaching to the choir but I have to repeat it....Guns don't kill people, people kill people. I know a lot of people who own guns and not one of them is willing to just go out and shoot someone. None of them want to do anything that would even begin to cause them to lose their right to own guns. This is true of most gun owners. The vast of majority of gun owners are like those I know and wouldn't do anything that could cause them to lose their right to bear arms.
Why is it then that so many people view the gun owners of America as crazy lunatics who would shoot someone at the drop of a hat? Many of the people with this viewpoint are simply afraid of guns and feel only crazy people would have them around. Where are they picking these ideas up from? They certainly haven't been hanging out with the gun owners themselves or they would find out that their viewpoint on these the majority people is completely backwards. Certainly there are the select few who would go off at the drop of a hat, but those gun owners aren't the norm.
I was in a local Wal-Mart store waiting to buy my deer tag one evening last year when a toddler who was maybe three wandered across the aisle from his mom to the sporting goods section. He happened to stop at one of the gun display cases and just stood there looking up in awe. His mother noticed that he was by the gun display and began shouting and screaming "get away form there! Oh my goodness, get away from those guns!" Did she not realize that those unloaded firearms were no more capable of shooting her son than a notebook is capable of smacking someone over the head on its own? This type of reaction to guns seems to me to be sheer insanity. Perhaps the anti-gun people are the ones who need their heads examined.
The anti-gun crowd doesn't seem to understand that if there were no guns in the United States we would continue to have murders. Murderers would turn to other weapons of choice such as knives or any other item they felt would help them to complete their task at hand. The standard answer is to call the police. I don't know about you but where I live it can take nearly an hour for the sheriff to show up after being called to the scene. By the time the police arrived a criminal would have enough time to kill everyone inside and escape with whatever they felt like hauling away. Besides this, why is it that they feel a cop should be allowed to have a gun but any other citizen shouldn't? This thinking is absolutely ridiculous.
It is up to us as sportsmen to take an active roll in educating the public with the truth about guns, hunting and the many other activities in which we participate. When confronted about why we take part in the sports we enjoy, we must take the time to help those who ask to understand. If we do nothing and continue on it may not simply be our guns they seek to rid us of, it may be our outdoor lifestyle.
I won't be publishing many posts like this one, but I had to get this issue off my mind. Thanks for taking the time to hear me out.
-Any day in the outdoors is a good day
No comments:
Post a Comment