Sticking to Our Guns
2012-07-24 - by
Gun rights vs. gun control: Except for race, it is the starkest divide in America today.
The Batman killings revived the familiar debate. One side says, “When are we going to do something about the easy availability of guns and bullets in America?” The other says, “If somebody had been packing a gun in that theater, those lives could have been saved.”
There is no bridging this divide. These twain shall never meet.
Wine-sipping, Whole Foods-shopping Americans just don’t get this thing about guns. Hunters, sportsmen and good old boys see a threat to their way of life, their recreation and their very freedom.
Unfortunately for the gun-control folks, guns run deep in American history and hearts. We’re an independent country because colonists took up guns against the King. We idealize the Wild West. Generations of boys, especially in the South, fondly remember going hunting at dawn with their daddies.
Gun control is just not going to happen. You can accuse politicians like President Obama of being spineless. That’s easy to do when you’re mayor of New York. You can demonize the NRA. But this is a right that too many Americans will tenaciously cling to (you’ll pardon the expression) for it to ever change.
Sticking to Our Guns
2012-07-24/
Gun rights vs. gun control: Except for race, it is the starkest divide in America today.
The Batman killings revived the familiar debate. One side says, “When are we going to do something about the easy availability of guns and bullets in America?” The other says, “If somebody had been packing a gun in that theater, those lives could have been saved.”
There is no bridging this divide. These twain shall never meet.
Wine-sipping, Whole Foods-shopping Americans just don’t get this thing about guns. Hunters, sportsmen and good old boys see a threat to their way of life, their recreation and their very freedom.
Unfortunately for the gun-control folks, guns run deep in American history and hearts. We’re an independent country because colonists took up guns against the King. We idealize the Wild West. Generations of boys, especially in the South, fondly remember going hunting at dawn with their daddies.
Gun control is just not going to happen. You can accuse politicians like President Obama of being spineless. That’s easy to do when you’re mayor of New York. You can demonize the NRA. But this is a right that too many Americans will tenaciously cling to (you’ll pardon the expression) for it to ever change.