From The ALH
Archives -Stop The Gun Violence-Nothing More Needs To Be Said-Or Maybe More
Does When You Come To Think About The Matter
By Fritz
Taylor
It bears
repeating since I have taken what I half-expected would be some blow-back from
what I call frankly “gun nuts.” Guys, maybe gals too but I don’t see many of
them on the range, at least not the one in Rowley, whose only political position,
and who knows if that is even true and maybe it is something about security lost
way back when at the time they had to fend for themselves after working their
ways out of dear mother wombs, is that they will defend, fight, maybe even go
to armed struggle like some of the whackos out west so that no governmental
agency, great or small will take away their weapons. On inquiry, maybe
inspection is the better word, when asked by me or others whether any such
agencies had approached them about taking their weapons away they have universally
said no. That said I still have to tell you about the blow-back from the nut-cakes
-and I am a guy who both likes the right to bear arms, thinks the original founders
met for us to be militarily prepared for whatever was up and who likes to fire
a few harmless rounds at paper bullseyes for, I don’t know, kicks maybe.
To refresh I
mentioned in my first caption on this subject that I knew exactly why Greg
Green gave me this archival caption assignment. I am maybe the only one on
staff here, I am not sure of Sam Lowell, who agrees with the U.S. Supreme Court’s
decision on an individual’s Second Amendment right to bear arms. Having grown
up in 1950s then rural Fulton County down in Georgia where guns, learning to
shoot are a way of life and then having served in the military I am very familiar
with weapons. Like to go to the firing
range over in secluded Rowley and see what my latest abilities are. No subtle or
sweet reason argument here for my position except that I want the right to bear
arms because I don’t want the cops, the crazies, the criminals and the cranks
to be the only ones with fire power.
Let me put
this in big letters or something like that I do not like the NRA, have never
joined despite constant and unending mail giving me a million chances to join
that organization and defense my rights big time. Defending those rights somewhere
along that line of reasoning where if one single regulatory encroachment passes
through the sieve every gunowner with have to surrender his or her weapons and go
on the run. Jesus.
That is where
I draw some very big lines on this gun question. This gun madness question of
late. It is a very, very long distance from exercising my right to bear arms essentially
defensively against cops, crazies, cranks and criminal or whatever attempts to
harm me and mine and opposing every attempt to limit access by crazies and criminals
to weapons. A very long way from an occasional admittedly male-hunter warrior drive
to some secluded firing range to burst off a few rounds and not have
safe-guards against the very real dangerous people in the world who should not be
allowed access to endless weapons depots. Yeah, call me a liberal, call me a
bleeding heart, but we have got to protect our kids, grandkids, and somebody else’s
too by dropping the violence index which is sky high right now.
Those
seemingly sane reasons drew more hell and damnation from so-called fellow gun
owners who have frozen their brains around the thought that any encroachment is
tantamount to surrender and destruction of everything this country stands for,
or did until the military went berserk with weaponry, the cops become
militarized, the criminals did likewise and more to keep the coppers at bay,
and the crazies started almost looting the gun shops, shows, and depots.
Here is one
example, not the worse, and since I have not asked permission in the age of privacy
and identity politics concerns will just use a first name-Claude-
“It is motherfuckers
like you, guys who claim to defend the sacred right to bear arms, to defend
home and hearth, to defend against the criminal immigrants, the (n-word), and
dopey liberal bureaucrats that are bleeding us dry. Are putting my three kids
and darling wife at risk by chipping away with regulations and other “deep state”
secret government stuff I know about but don’t want to talk about here to a commie.
So fuck you and your friend Obama and the other (n-word) who want to see us defenseless
when they come crawling into our neighborhoods.”
Like I said this
is far from the worst one so you can see what I am, we are up against in protecting
our kids and grand-kids from the vultures.