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Editorial See other Editorial Articles Title: Everyday Hunter: He only asked if I got any rabbits... When I was 11 years old I remember hearing something that seemed unfathomable at the time. Some people actually wanted to rid our society of guns and hunting. I had been waiting since I was 6 years old to carry my own gun in pursuit of deer, had only one more year to wait, and now people were trying to do away with that? Why on earth? My history lessons told me our nation could not have won its independence without firearms in the hands of its citizens. The stories I read included Daniel Boone hunting and pioneering his way through the wilderness to Kentucky and eventually Missouri. I learned about Davy Crockett, buckskin-clad hero of the Alamo whom Disney proclaimed “King of the Wild Frontier.” Yes, I admit these stories tended to romanticize our national heroes. Is that a problem? Every culture and every political movement does that. What was important was that one consistent truth came through—the firearms these men carried were tools of all that is right and good. Television fiction only reinforced that truth, whether we were watching Marshal Matt Dillon administer the law in Dodge City, Kansas, or the Lone Ranger and Tonto fight injustice in Texas. Some people caution us against using the words “never” and “always,” but our heroes never misused their guns, and common, upright citizens always supported them, sometimes with their own shooting irons. By the end of every episode, good guys always defeated bad guys. The right prevailed, the wrong had failed, and peace was restored to the American way. As a kid familiar with guns, I could not imagine many people who would misuse guns. Everyone knew at least a couple of citizen-soldiers from World War II, a war fought by unified civilian and military effort. And we saw ourselves as evidence that no one ought to mess with the United States of America because our people were shooters. No enemy could defeat an army of soldier-marksmen who could shoot the eye out of a squirrel in the treetops, or put a bullet through the heart of a deer sprinting through the forest a hundred yards away. When the chips were down our heroes would not miss, whether that hero was a television cowboy, or the men we knew who won the war, or the hunters we admired. We aspired to their marksmanship skills, but just as important, we aspired to their character. I’ll admit it’s true that the picture my generation had of our prowess with guns and our righteous cause was idealized. Not every warrior came home, some who survived came home broken, and some suffered critically wounded psyches. A few wanted nothing to do with guns ever again. Not being in their combat boots, I can’t blame them. BUT IT’S ALSO true that we didn’t worry about school or theater or church shootings, even though gun-free zones hadn’t been invented. A kid could carry a gun to school, for hunting later, without getting into trouble, and no one would even suspect any evil intentions. That’s not a romanticized memory. It’s my memory. I was that kid. After school in October the football coach watched me walk across his team’s practice field, my beagle on a leash and my shotgun over my shoulder. He didn’t fear I was up to no good. He envied me as I headed for the hill above the school to hunt rabbits on school property. If the coach heard me shoot, I knew I’d be held accountable the next day. He didn’t look for any warning signs of violence. He didn’t caution me against shooting my schoolmates. He didn’t remind me about gun safety. He only asked if I got any rabbits. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: X-15 (#0)
What a beautiful trip back in time, thank you. I was that kid also. “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken
Guns don't just "go off", but people do.
The best thing you do to relax, and you will have no problem. You'll have no problem with this thing if you just relax. - Jim Jones
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