bali wrote:
The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.
I have owned and still own firearms. I don't hunt anymore due to encroaching arthritis and just a general decline in my interest in hunting
But I have a 12 gauge 1959 Remington pump that has dropped many pheasant, quail and lesser quantities of dove and prairie chicken (those suckers are FAST!) and busted many blue rock at trap shoots that came under my pretty accurate eye and steady hand up until 30 years or so ago. My 1918 model Eddystone English bolt action 30.06 caliber sniper's rifle (purchased in the early 1960s from a cosmoline-covered batch just in to a Kansas City, Kansas forerunner to stores such as WalMart called "Jubilee City") has mostly been been used by my oldest son, the deer slayer before he bought his own big game rifle. I've never hunted deer with a rifle — my weapon of choice has been the camera. But I've certainly fired many rounds from that Eddystone at paper targets fastened to a hay bale at the base of a cliff in isolated areas in the country. I have a 22 long rifle, 16 shot pump that has put many a squirrel in a stew pot!
They sit today in my closet, cleaned, oiled and covered. Though they may never be fired again in my lifetime (certainly, not likely by me), I have no intention of giving them up to anyone other than my own progeny, who I hope will pass them on to their progeny until the stocks weather check and the metal on the active parts wears thin.
The three paragraphs above are here to establish my position on the banning of firearms. It should never happen in America!
I agree with those who think we should at least take a look at why firearms that can fire dozens of rounds a minute are so easily obtainable by unstable people.
Bob B. is absolutely correct in his assertion that the American Revolution would have never occurred had there been firearms control.
But attempts at comparing Revolutionary America with 21st Century American is comparing apples and oranges.
At the time of the American Revolution, when
90% of the population lived in rural areas and a significant proportion of that 90% lived on the frontier, where survival often depended on being able to supplement a poor harvest with game killed with a rifle and/or being able to defend yourself against Indian tribes that viewed homesteaders as encroaching on their traditional lands, the question of gun control would never have arisen. The gun, like the plow, was a most necessary tool in the above environment.
Not so today. For most of us in modern society, neither plow nor firearm is a necessary tool. I loved upland game bird hunting. I've done my share of rabbit and squirrel hunting. My son loves to hunt deer, squirrel and rabbit. So does his son.
But not one of those mornings, arising before dawn to quietly sneak to a blind or a patch of milo in sometimes sub-zero temperatures, there to spend cold hours awaiting our quarry were done to keep our families from going hungry. Though we certainly cooked, ate and enjoyed very much the game we procured, we would have eaten well without the deer, pheasant, quail and rabbit.
Not so that outland farmer in 1775. Often, his quiet stalk made the difference between eating and going hungry on cold February day.
In the nearly 74 years I've been walking around the woods and prairies of this country, I've never fired a weapon in anger or self defense or to kill anything I wasn't planning to eat.
Those folks on the 18th century American frontier had to do that on a regular basis.
So there are dramatic differences in the uses to which we put our firearms today and the absolutely vital purpose they had in young American.
So I will listen as objectively as my values, which are those of a Catholic, God-Loving Christian, who openly admits he enjoys owning and firing weapons, permit me to those who offer their proposals to reduce violence. If there proposals have merit, I will consider support them.
If they are disguised attempts to remove firearms from conscientious Americans, I will resist such efforts as vigorously and as effectively as I can!
And one aside: If you peruse my words above, you will not find the use of the word "gun" anywhere. The terms weapon, firearm, pistol, rifle are used.
There's a reason for that! I am a former active duty Marine. Those of you out there who are also former or active Jarheads know why, don't you!
I'm thankful that I wasn't the boot in our platoon who called his M-1 a "gun"! Even into the darkening night, we could hear him on the little grinder, say "This is my rifle, this is my gun. This is for fightin', this is . . ."
Occasionally, we'd hear Junior DI Sergeant Necker shout out the open duty hut door, "I can't hear you!"
Nobody in the platoon had the nerve to check to be sure the poor guy was standing in the position Sgt. Necker had ordered.
And nobody in the platoon ever called an M-1 a 'gun' again . . . and I would not be surprised if that has held true through these intervening 55 years.
_________________
In Christ,
Jim B
I will consider your position if stated with firm, well-thought-out, quiet reasoning. Hateful diatribe, ad hominem attacks and shouted rhetoric don't impress.
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