The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #27161 Message #332766
Posted By: Big Mick
02-Nov-00 - 11:12 AM
Thread Name: Nader for President
Subject: RE: Nader for President
The gun issue is a red herring, and the Right uses it to try and scare folks. The facts are that we have had a Democratic President for eight years and the first two years he had a Democratic Congress. Anyone lost any guns? Al Gore is a sportsman, and a hunter. He has never advocated taking guns away from anyone but criminals. In the eight years of the Clinton-Gore administration, the only things in this area that have been taken away are cop killer bullets (which I support, and I have a total of eight guns), and closed the assault weapons loophole created during dubya's father's administration. It was during the Bush years, I believe, that US made assault weapons were banned. Clinton-Gore then closed the door on foreign made weapons.
The right to keep and bear arms is an important issue in the states. But no progress will be made until the idiots on the extremes of this issue quit spouting rhetoric and start talking to one another. I believe strongly in my right to own weapons. Let me tell what they represent to me. In my minds eye I can still see the day that I first was allowed to fire a shotgun. I can remember campfires with my uncles and cousins, the huge meals with all the family around, the rite of passage in being allowed to hunt with the grownups. I can remember the lectures on gun safety, the NRA sponsored safety class, the stern admonitions from my Da. I can remember the delight on my Grandmothers face when I brought her 3 rabbits and a pheasant and the wonderful rabbit stew she made. That's the childhood memories. The guns, also came to mean something else to me, in another time in my life. I saw the awful carnage they reap on another human being. I became determined that I would become very competent in their use, and in the skill of surgical shooting. And I did, so that if I ever did take it out in a self defense situation it would be used for that purpose in very precise and with deadly intent. And I have always prayed that it would never be used in such a fashion again. And thanks be to God, it never has.
Now let me tell you what guns mean to others. They are the sound in the streets that means that their children are being exposed to danger. They are the genesis of the holes in their walls and windows while they are sitting in the one place that they should feel safe. They are the source of misery and fear and in the minds of those that live with this terror, they represent not one good thing. They are the thing that caused a little 7 yr. old boy in Flint, Michigan to kill a little girl in his class.
The facts are that until these two sides can begin to talk to one another, and reconcile these entirely different views of these things, politicians will continue to pander to the one side or the other for political gain. And the polarity will continue. I am not a member of the NRA, but I tell my friends who are that as long as they continue to spout that tired old 2nd Amendment rhetoric, they will continue to lose. A change is definitely coming, and if they don't get off that horse and get to the table the change will come without them. And I tell my anti-gun friends that I am a gun owner, and as long as they continue to pursue taking away a right of mine that logical thinking shows there is no reason to take away, then they are against me. The guns killing the kids in the streets are not my guns. I, and people like me, have done nothing to cause society to take away a heritage that has been passed down over the centuries.
And most importantly, those that vote a single issue, such as guns or abortion, and continue to ignore the other 8 or 10 issues that impact them in a far greater and longer term way, contribute to their own demise. And the boys at the top just laugh at us for the fools we are.
Mick