Something Oughta Be Done

I don't do too many "me too" posts, but every now and again I make an exception when I read something that really gets my head to nodding. Michael Bane posted about how American men may finally be tiring of "metrosexual" nonsense and being men. But that's not what got my head nodding.

He mentions this John Lott article on the decline of gun stores thanks to over-regulation. Michael Bane mentions he's been feeling unease over just this problem. We may be winning the battles of public opinion, laws, etc, but may wake up one day and find we can't buy a new gun to replace Ole Betsy. Bane mentions the need to have a national firearms agenda.

I have to agree with his point, thus the nodding head. As Lott and Bane point out, we can no longer buy guns in Wal-Mart or other stores. I remember when a trip to Sears involved a good look at their guns. That's a thing of the past.

Now, I'm not saying that Wal-Mart or Sears are the best places to buy guns. They're not--Support your local gun shop and all. But we've lost a time when guns were common, ordinary tools to where they've become mythologized and demonized.

Sometimes it's Hollywood that creates the myths. Hollywood depicted guns as being able to blow up cars. People who were shot with one would fly several yards through the air (the TV show Mythbusters has de-mythed these and other gun fallacies).

These myths hurt us because most Americans now live separate from nature. In the recent past, people hunted and knew a .30-06 didn't hurl a deer 20 feet through the air. Now, people have no context for what they see, so naturally they say, "something oughta be done about guns."

When Congress Critters and others hear that a certain percent of the population wants "something to be done" it's like adding liquid oxygen to a fire. They pass laws based on their own inadequate understanding of guns (and other things as well, like Internet tubes). The next thing you know, we're in a cultural and legal battle for our gun rights.

We need that national firearms agenda that Michael Bane mentioned even though we gunnies are divided. We need to be the ones who tell the Congress Critters that now is the time to rein in or disband the ATF and reduce regulations and other gun laws. As consumers, we need to support any store that sells guns or ammo. We need to take a non-gunnie shooting and win this war.

Now I can stop nodding my head--I'm getting dizzy here.