Whose Sports? - While I
Whose Sports? - While I did, in fact, praise the Strib's news coverage of the concealed carry debate, their editorial page is still carrying water for Sara Brady.
Today, as if on cue, they printed this letter from investment banker and "sportsman" Bob Johnson of Lakeville.
As a gun owner, hunter and sportsman, I'm concerned about a common misperception: the belief that gun owners are a monolithic body of people who all march to the tune of the National Rifle Association.
No, we certainly aren't. An awful lot of people own firearms who have no clue about the constitutional issues involved. A lot of politicials cynically manipulate that disconnect; Mark Dayton, a member of the gun-grabbing DFL, portrayed himself as a firearms rights supporter, as did Ann Wynia; Bill Clinton had himself photographed trunding through the swamp with a shotgun, shooting some sort of bird or another; Paul Wellstone did his damnedest to dissociate "sport" shooters from those of us who see firearms as a constitutional and moral issue.
And they're all wrong!
Johnson continues:
As legislators debate the measure that would put more concealed, loaded handguns onto our streets, they should not assume that most gun owners would be happy with a looser permitting system. Some very misguided policies are propounded in our names, and many common-sense measures that would protect all of us are never enacted -- all out of fear that gun owners will exact their revenge at the polls if our interests are not defended.
The unfortunate truth is that those gun owners who speak the loudest represent only one rather extreme element of the gun-owning population.
The NRA has about three million members. They're all extremists?
And the simple fact is that concealed carry is n ot extreme. The record nationwide - in 34 other states - shows i to be a prudent measure that at the very worst does no harm, and at the most does in fact reduce violent crime.
Pretty extreme, huh?
The rest of us do not support the notion that our community will be safer with thousands more gun-toting citizens carrying concealed, loaded handguns.
Who is Bob Johnson, suburban male soccer dad, to speak for "the rest of us?" I don't recall any elections.
Nor do we believe that military-style combat weapons should be marketed to the general public.
I'm not sure how to read this line: Does Mr. Johnson (and the editors at the Strib) think tossing scary army guns into the letter will associate it with the concealed carry debate? Or are they all just devoid of logic?
Most of us do not fear reasonable regulation.
But this isn't about "reasonable regulation", is it?
In fact, the permit-issuing process is all about "reasoable regulation" - in many ways, vastly more reasonable than the current system! Under the proposed bill, permit applicants must actually prove they have no criminal record, and undergo actual training. Under the current system, the applicant must merely be approved - purely subjectively - by their chief of police.
Which, indeed, is the more "reasonable" regulation?
Hunters are among the most responsible of gun owners. We store, care for and use our firearms properly. We treat them with respect because we know their power and understand their danger.
Well, that's fine - but if you combine all that responsibility with illogical myopia on the larger moral, constitutional and criminological issues, all you are is responsible and wrong.
Here's the part that makes me see red; the same line used by inveterate gun-grabbers like Paul Wellstone and Bill Clinton:
There is no threat to losing our right to own guns for sport.
But the Constitution doesn't protect hunting!
Sometimes I wonder who the bigger enemies are - those who actively oppose firearms rights, or those who can't see beyond their own recreational self-interest.
The real threat to gun owners is the same threat hanging over the rest of the population -- that the safety of our families will be jeopardized if the rhetoric of the gun-rights groups prevails.
Posted by Mitch at
April 25, 2003 11:47 AM
