Goodness and Guns - They're Not Mutually Exclusive

                            Goodness and Guns … They’re Not Mutually Exclusive

                                                                        Published in the Marietta Daily Journal Oct. 11, 2015

            There is nothing more senseless than announcing to the world that where you live, work, worship or attend school is a “gun-free zone.”  Surely those who do so have a romanticized view of human nature.

            Perhaps they believe there is no such thing as bad people.  Maybe they think an evil or sick person will honor their gun-free stance and move along to commit crime elsewhere.  Why would anyone say to anybody, “I am defenseless”?

            Yet this very mindset is being urged, again, by the nation’s president, he who is protected hourly by men with weapons.  Guns, in fact.  It is the height of hypocrisy to tell others they cannot defend themselves while you yourself are defended by an armed entourage.

            The president is right when he says, “Here we go again.  We’ve just had another shooting.  The pattern continues.”  But there’s another pattern that continues as well.  It is the pattern of politicizing every tragic shooting, banging the drums for gun control legislation and telling law-abiding citizens they are at fault.

            If only at Umpqua College in Oregon someone in Classroom 15 other than the shooter had had a gun.  I’m talking about a responsible citizen with a legal weapon who knows how and when to use it.  Such citizens are everywhere, except where guns aren’t permitted.  If only at Charleston, if only at Virginia Tech.  If only at several other places.

            Gun owners are being painted by the president and others (we won’t call any names at ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN; we hardly need to) as violence-prone people who are always eager to reach for a gun.  The opposite is true.  Unlike the suited up network news anchors who have probably never seen a gun and are frightened by the thought of one, seasoned gun owners know quite well what a serious thing a gun is.  Members of the NRA, Gun Owners of America and other such groups respect guns, knowing quite well their history and their proper use.

            I wish the president and all others who get the hibby-gibbies at the very thought of a gun would attend a gun show.  Not to be unkind, but I suspect half of them would faint as soon as they saw the massive display of guns.  But if smelling salts could revive them and if they would hang around, they could meet good citizens from all walks of life.

            We know what the president and the media elites are thinking.  They think that gun show enthusiasts are snaggle-toothed moonshiners who come out of the woods to gloat at the sight of weapons.  On the contrary, gun enthusiasts are lawyers, teachers, ministers, mechanics, merchants, farmers, engineers and physicians.  Many of these are women, a fact that would drive the elite visitors crazy.

            Something that would really impress (or puzzle) the president and his tender sycophants is the congeniality that marks such a diverse group.  Some of them will be avid hunters; others, weapon historians.  Some will have self-defense on their minds; others, marksmanship.  But all of them will be good, regular Americans who know and respect guns and understand the ramifications of gun ownership.  However, they definitely dislike having their freedom abridged.

            Most of them don’t squawk about their right to bear arms, but you can bet they vote and know about the second amendment.

            Three years ago this column space was twice devoted to the folly of the anti-gun lobby’s position.  The first column argued that no school or college should be a gun-free zone and that every school and college campus should have an adequate number of well-trained, psychologically vetted personnel always armed.  The second column pointed out that we seem to be slow in noticing that so many shootings occur at schools and colleges.

            The president’s solution is to restrict the freedom of law-abiding gun owners and potential gun owners.  This analogy would offend him, but he prefers the shotgun approach rather than the rifle approach.

            “Virtute et armis” is a Latin expression that means “by virtue and arms” or “by valor and arms.”  It is the insignia motto of at least two states.  Virtue, of course, refers to moral excellence; arms refers to weapons.  It is not a distortion of this classical expression to argue that it means “goodness and guns.”  In other words, human beings should be virtuous and good, but also wise.  Not stupid.

            It is not wise to think that we can change the behavior of evil or sick people or protect ourselves from them by disarming ourselves. But that is exactly what the anti-gun lobby is arguing.

Roger Hines

10/7/15