One of the major reasons there is such a large element of folks wishing to disarm the rest of us is the behavior of some of us.
We read or hear stories of some criminal miscreant committing some violence or another with a firearm, and always there is the hue and cry for gun control. I have little difficulty defending the right of the people to keep and bear arms in such cases, as the acts were that of a criminal… not a legitimate, law abiding gun owner. There are criminals and there are crazy people, neither of whom should be allowed access to deadly weapons. Guns in our hands are one way of protection from these bad guys.
But unfortunately there are overtly law abiding folks who go about life in an upstanding fashion for many years, all the while owning and carrying firearms in an overtly legitimate manner, then one day they make an error in judgment that is difficult to justify. It is far more difficult to defend my 2A rights in those cases.
Take for instance the case a couple years back where a fine, upstanding small businessman in Florida took it upon himself to defend a neighbor’s cattle from marauding wolves.
The only problem is that they weren’t wolves. They were pet huskies escaped from the yard of another neighbor, and all the while the shooter was doing such a bad job of trying to kill the "wolves", the dog’s owner was right there trying to stop him; shouting… begging… pleading for the shooter to stop. But he kept shooting, and all the while failing to follow even basic gun safety rules.
All of this was caught on video by one of the estimated 60 witnesses, a tourist from Ireland. In the video you can here her saying, “That’s the problem with America; guns.”
Without much information, and with the shooter claiming justification, it was initially easy for me to excuse the situation and assume the shooter was doing what so many farmers and ranchers have had to do so many times in the past.
Protecting livestock from loose dogs has become a real problem as city dwellers frequently dump unwanted pets in the countryside, perhaps thinking the kindly country folk will adopt them. Unfortunately that seldom happens. We already have our own dogs and don’t need these strays. So the strays frequently pack up and attack the livestock, which is the livelihood of some farm or ranch family. The result has been a pretty automatic response of shooting any stray unfortunate enough to wander onto the farm.
It wasn’t that way in the Florida incident. The shooter did not own either the property or the cattle, and had no relationship with the owner of the calves in the video. Neither did the calves represent the livelihood of the owner. They were on a hobby farm, kept for the purpose of protecting an agricultural tax exemption. The shooter was acting of his on accord and without invitation. He trespassed onto the property to shoot the “wolves” for a reason only he might be able to explain.
Still, when confronted, he claimed he was doing a good deed. He wasn’t initially charged with anything because he claimed the dogs tried to attack him.
A game changer
Once the video hit You Tube the story went viral and the anti-gun crowd went crazy. A Google search finds scores of blogs ranting about the incident, most by anti-gunners and/or animal rights bloggers.
Some blogs are for-profit operations, but many are like mine; a hobby blog. We hobby bloggers aren’t trying to make money; we just use the venue as a means of expression. So I found it rather unsettling when I learned that the shooter had filed a lawsuit against a hobby blogger for that blogger’s admittedly anti-gun, anti-redneck (or hillbilly, as it is called in the blog title) ravings. Although I might agree that he was over the top with his criticism, suing a hobby blogger is a mistake of monumental proportions.
The fellow who shot the dogs was wrong in the actions of that day, and he is damn sure wrong for suing anyone expressing an opinion of those actions. The guy is an asshat on many levels, but with this desperately misguided suit, he is doing all manner of further stupidity that serves only to cement his asshat status in perpetuity.
He will lose the suit, and in all likelihood will lose when he gets sued for filing it in the first place. In the mean time he has placed a heavier burden on honest gun owners everywhere.
To quote that famous philosopher, Bugs Bunny, “What a maroon…”
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3 Comments:
It's the 1% of true idjits that screw it up for the 99% who are law abiding... Sadly, as this case shows, that 1% seems to ALWAYS end up in the media...
That's not why they want to disarm us. They'll use it of course, they are willing to use anything, true or not, to disarm us. But in the end the reason they want us disarmed is the same reason the Nazis and the Soviet Union had. It is impossible to subjugate a armed populace.
We will have to be disarmed before they can consolidate power.
A little narrowly focused there ASM, are you not?
Sorry bud, I'm a gun owner and will defend that right tooth and toenail, but taking the tact you seem to be taking will not aid in the defense of gun ownership. If anything attitudes like yours will lend weight to the anti-gunner's argument.
The desire to disarm the people has no single root. There are a number of arguments utilized by a number of different people for a number of reasons. I doubt your evaluation is very high on the list. Most people want guns to be gone because they are frightened by them. They see only the bad things caused by guns, and fail to see the benefits.
The idiot in the video gives them reason to be frightened, and people with your attitude do too, unfortunately.
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