Many of you are aware that for the past 2 and 1/2 years I have written a monthly column for “The Courant” which is the Whitmore Lake newspaper. These can be found at www.courantonline.com
This month due to space considerations the WAAM “Off the Airwaves” pages of the Courant were reduced and my column will not appear.
I am posting the piece that would have appeared in the December issue here on my website:
TriggerTalk: The Company You Keep
I have just returned from deer hunting with my two best friends. As in past years we gathered for firearms seasons for a healthy dose of gun talk, firearms handling and time in the woods. Together over 45 years since the summer after 5th grade, we went to school together, shot together, and occasionally hunted together but we always stayed in touch.
Our families are grown now and on their own or almost there so we have time to get together each November 15th. We gather at one friend’s cottage in Charlevoix County and the other suggested we each bring several of our recent gun acquisitions. It looked like a gun show at the cottage with 35 firearms ranging from bolt action long range rifles to antique revolvers. We kept a close eye on them throughout the weekend, especially the Modern Sporting Rifles the anti-gunners call “Assault Rifles”. I can report that not a single firearms did anything bad or evil even the ones with the super dangerous “High Capacity Magazines” that the gun banners want to take away from us.
Friday night is the Fish Fry at Moose Jaw Junction and the place is filled with camo and hunter orange. Everybody is talking about that days hunt. A chalkboard tracks the deer harvest by location and number of points. A UPS driver tells of seeing an 8-point chased by a coyote about an hour ago. “Where are you from?” is heard all over the bar, the answer met with nodding approvals as long as it’s not Ohio.
There is a warm welcoming kinship present, the acknowledgement of a common purpose: respect for the hunt, the animal and the firearms. The restaurant owner asks how your hunt went as he shows you to the table and the waitress is actually interested to hear your stories from the day. There is not an anti-gunner in sight, and no “Gun Free Zone” sign at the door. Trucks and cars in the parking lot are full of high powered rifles and if they are not drinking many patrons have one on their hip. Noticeably missing is any hint of trouble or rowdiness.
These are the people the anti-gunners would call “Gun Nuts” and try to paint as a problem that must be regulated by more restrictive gun control. Wrong, these are law abiding gun owners. Most of us have been handling firearms safely for decades, some of us for over a half century. We buy them and sell them to each other based on a mutual respect and relationship all without the interference of a “Universal Background Check”. We don’t sell our guns to people we don’t know and we don’t buy guns of unknown origin from shady guys in back alleys the way criminals do. This is why the implementation of a more restrictive purchase process for firearms will have no effect on violent gun crime. The people shooting up schools and malls have no respect for the laws that already exist or people that obey them.
If I had to choose the people I am going to be around I would choose the “Gun Nuts”. People that respect the law, other people and the 2nd Amendment. People that love their Country and the rich history it has recorded. I am not talking about politicians that say “I respect the Second Amendment, BUT…”! I trust them about as much as the one who promised “If you like your healthcare policy you can keep it”. Try changing one phrase in that promise to “If you like your Second Amendment you can keep it”. How does that make you feel about the long term prospects of maintaining your gun rights? If someone does not trust me with my firearms, then I don’t trust them to govern, period.
It all boils down to the Company you keep!
