Why Do They Hate Us?

I am angry.

Let me explain. It is very hard to be a gun aficionado in today’s world. Why? Well, let me be blunt. We are detested by many, many people in this country (more in the rest of the world). We are blamed for crime problems and every time some lunatic goes off on a rampage, well the bien pensant says it must be the gun culture.

This is a relatively new phenomenon.

When I was young, not all the long ago, I learned to shoot at scout camp, had cowboy style pop guns and no one had a second thought that this was wrong or improper. Today, it is almost tantamount to child abuse to teach a child to shoot and pop guns are as rare as hens teeth. An entire culture that was good and useful has been tossed on the dung heap of history and for what? Did we get a reduction in the amount and severity of crime?

Criminals ignore every gun law that is passed. Crime continues to climb or fall due to other factors that we barely address due to our elites fixation on guns as the root of all evil.

I've been thinking that the shooting at Virginia Tech has set the gun rights movement back 8 years. We are where we were in 1999, after Columbine. I see no more pro gun laws being passed on the national level and it will be hard to fight off new gun control laws.

It is extremely frustrating. We have worked hard to get where we are today and some lunatic destroyed it all in a few hours. The media is bleating its usual gun control line and we basically have to hunker down until some time passes. We take one step forward and the media pushes us two steps back. And where the media goes, the majority of the American people seem to follow, sooner or later. We become pariahs again, barely sentient, inbred hicks in the eyes of the elite and their followers.

I’m sick of it. I’m sick of not being able to talk about my favorite hobby because someone might be offended or even call the authorities because my "fascination with guns" must be the symptom of a sick mind or someone who might lose it at any minute.

I would like to be able to come out, so to speak, and be honest about my hobby. But, it is too dangerous, especially where I work (Massachusetts). Too many good people have had their careers destroyed because they had the temerity to be honest about their hobby.

I live for the day when a co-worker says something that implies that he may not be entirely hostile to the right to bear arms. A few knowing words and phrases are exchanged and a secret is shared. There are more than a few people that share this hobby, even in the "People’s Republic". But, it can be a risky enterprise, trying to get to know them.

I would like to live in a country where I could be honest and tell all of my co-workers that I am going to the NRA convention in St. Louis and not have to mumble that I am traveling there to visit some friends and family. Maybe other parts of the country are better, but not here.

I know for a fact that if too many people find out that you like to collect and shoot firearms, you will be distrusted and shunned. This has happened to someone close to me. This person is shunned basically because she enjoys shooting and collecting firearms. She overheard one of her co-workers suggesting that maybe someone should be informed of her "obsession with firearms."

At her office, workplace violence directives suggest that people who enjoy shooting and collecting firearms could be a danger and if they seem obsessive, they should be reported, so they can get counseling. But, how does one define obsessive? Well, in Massachusetts, obsessive means that you own guns, period. That makes you automatically suspect.

The irony is that this person’s co-worker is gay and Jewish. You would think that he would realize, more than anyone, what happens when the people are all disarmed. Does he not remember the Warsaw Ghetto? The final irony is that he is a potential informer.

I really don’t know how we as gun rights advocates can begin to turn this country around. The media is our biggest hurdle. Day after day, month after month, year after year, the media pumps out total lies, misinformation and propaganda that would make Goebbels proud. It is extremely difficult to fight this. All I can think of doing is continuing to support gun rights organizations like the NRA, Gun Owners of America, and JPFO. But our enemies are well funded and too many people in this country agree with them, 100%.

This shouldn’t be hard. We really aren’t asking for much. We just want to be left alone and not demonized and sanctioned because of our beliefs. But I suspect that isn’t going to happen. Our enemies want to crush us under their heels and if we so much as whimper, we will be attacked for being unreasonable.