There is a certain disjointed way of thinking when lawmakers, ‘do gooders’ and campaigners start talking about gun owners.
For a start, there is the misguided belief that possession of a gun means you are automatically a danger to everyone around you, never mind yourself. This is evident across the world. I have seen it here in the UK as arguments rage about why people would want to have guns anyway, unless they were up to no good.
A fascinating programme was aired here the other week when a young chap – quite unashamedly – put that very question to a well-known shooter and then the owner of a gun shop.
He seemed quite disappointed to discover that the “gun dealer” (a phrase uttered as though it was akin to someone peddling drugs) and the shooter actually took a huge amount of responsibility for everything they did that was gun related, preaching safety at every possible turn and – shock, horror – even appearing to be ‘normal’ members of the public.
It was even more of a shock when he interviewed a lady shot who revealed her buddies mixed their killing of clays with cake and buns. When he tried – and hit – some clays himself, he was, if you will excuse the pun, blown away by the fact that this was a very normal thing for people to do and, even more alarmingly, it was fun! And we know that the same argument about gun owners being harbingers of death is played out every day somewhere in the USA. But here’s the thing…these naysayers continue to believe that removing all legally held guns – or at least clamping down on their availability – will somehow save the masses from staring down the barrel. And yet the same sad truth holds as true today as it always has done – criminals simply don’t care about the law and the fact that a certain gun is not legal will not bother them one jot.