GUNS ARE FOR KILLING

Long-time friend, Jack Garner, wrote the following Letter to The Editor of the Denton Record-Chronicle shortly after the Orlando massacre. 

I agree with him wholeheartedly about assault weapons of any kind. It was good to hear Senator Murphy (D) from Connecticut lead the Democrats in a 15-hour filibuster on gun control this past Thursday, ending only when GOP leaders agreed to allow votes on two of the issues. I pray they can come to terms and pass such legislation we so desperately need. We'll see.

"50 dead at the time of this writing; more in critical condition may not survive. The cause? Not a hurricane, tornado, or earthquake, but one deranged man with an assault rifle.

It matters not if the shooter’s motivation was a hate crime directed at the sexual orientation of his victims or an Isis-inspired act of terror. What matters is that we are in a position to have this foul act repeated as long as assault rifles are on sale to the public.

Every family should be able to own a pistol with a limited ammunition clip for protection of home and family. The sportsmen should be allowed guns that permit them to participate in hunting; but to continue the sale of assault rifles is to sanction murder.

The National Rifle Association will scream to the high heavens at this proposal. They will claim that it violates their Second Amendment rights. When the Second Amendment was penned, a musket fired one round - a far cry from an assault rifle’s 30-round magazines. An assault rifle is overkill for home protection as well as hunting. Its only purpose is the taking of human life.

I am not naive enough to think banning of assault rifles would stop all murder. It has been a negative social act since Cain clobbered Abel, and will continue as long as humans carry hate in their hearts. Banning of assault rifles will, however, stop blood-flowing massacres such as the carnage in Orlando."

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"Gun manufacturers are pushing military style weapons: Rolling Stone magazine charges that since the industry has seen significant drops in the number of hunters in this generation, the industry has promoted assault rifles and machine guns, (the purchase of) which has risen in recent years." (rollingout.com)

If the millennials in my own family are typical of this generation -- and I believe they are -- the number of hunters will continue to drop. Their love of nature and involvement in environmental causes promise to keep them and their families to follow from ever wanting to intentionally harm the beautiful creatures on this planet. My daughter's family is vegetarian so they certainly don't go along with the argument that we need to slaughter animals for food. For those who do eat meat, the humane treatment of such animals is a priority. I cannot argue with that. I banished veal from my diet years ago after seeing a segment on "60 Minutes" about how tiny little calves were kept penned up so tightly as to prevent any fat or muscle development (one's veal must be tender!). They were never allowed out of this confining little prison until slaughter time. I cried as I watched the secretly filmed video of these poor little babes.

The deputies in the Sheriff's Office in west Texas where I worked for a short period of time, were typical hunter types. They loved to razz me about my tender heart where animals hit by cars were concerned. ("They are just animals.") They tried to convert me to their hunters' point of view with the issues of over-population of some breeds. Especially deer. (And now, of course, we have the feral hog population to deal with in Texas.) I realize the need for reducing/controlling over-population. It seems I heard some years back about trials with birth control drugs being used for this purpose with some animals. Modern technology can surely find a way to make that a plausible solution. Anyway, if we have to resort to hunting and killing as a "humanitarian" way of keeping some from starving, why does it have to be with assault weapons? These weapons were invented for use by the military, and for one purpose -- to kill humans!

I may have shared this story before, but must do so again. I probably told it to the Sheriff's Deputies, thus, the reason they teased me so. Long ago I told a friend of mine in Denton how it disturbed me to see so many animals lying dead along the side of the highway, having been hit by cars. She told me how she dealt with it. She just "blessed their little spirits" and drove on. (Thank you, Mary, for teaching me that.) It made things a little easier for me. It became second nature to me as I drove -- blessing little spirits of dead animals along the roadside. I could spot them up ahead and would begin my blessing, until one day the "animal" I thought I was blessing turned out to be a large piece of wall insulation that had blown off a truck! The blessing was complete by the time I reached it. Boy! Did I feel foolish!

I loved the story of Native Americans putting grass in the mouths of deer they killed for food, so the animal's spirit would have something to eat on its way to the other world. They would thank the animal and bless it on its journey. 

I wonder if the Orlando shooter thought even for a millisecond of blessing the spirits of those he killed. He certainly didn't kill for food.. so was it for sport?

Peace,

Marilyn