Life of a Hunter

Yesterday on the View Rosie O’Donnell was wrongly speaking about gun control and how our country would be safer without guns in it. To Ms O’Donnell I have got to say shame on you. You are using a terrible tragedy to try and market your own agenda.

Gun control laws are something that is very important to me. Every time lawmakers attempt to put a new gun ownership law into place, the only thing that it does is make honest people victims and weakens our country as a whole. I am not a soap box preaching, second amendment fanatic. However, I am a firearm owner. I am a shooter, a collector, and a hunter. I believe that one of the best weapons to control guns is education. I don’t believe that you need to restrict firearms, but I believe that you need to educate people how to use them and treat them properly. Growing up, I was always around firearms. I always had access to them, but never once did I ever feel the need to use one in a violent act. I was taught how to handle situations without the use of deadly force. I am not saying that I am a goody too shoe. I certainly had my share of confrontations as a young man, like most do.   There is no good reason for taking another person’s life: being hazed, beat up, called names, losing a girlfriend, not having any friends, not taking the right medication, the moon being out of  whack and all of the other reasons we come up with to make sense of these senseless acts are not good enough. There is never a reason to take another person’s life.

The tragedy that occurred this week at Virginia Tech is just that: a tragedy! But with all of the gun laws that you could put in place, this would probably still have happened. For as long as there are bad people out there, bad people will still continue to do bad things. As a citizen of the United States, not just a gun owner, I am deeply saddened by the events that took place. We as a society are responsible for this. Will putting more restrictions on people that are already law abiding citizens help prevent these type of heinous acts? I don’t think so. Our right to free speech – that Ms. O’Donnell so obviously loves – would not have been possible to obtain or to keep were it not for the firearms she so desperately wants to get rid of. Firearms are as much apart of our American Heritage as is apple pie and baseball. I want my children to be able to experience the same freedoms that I have as well as those that came before me. I do not want them to constantly be on the defensive from other American citizens trying to take those rights away.

To the families that had loved ones taken away so tragically this past week, I am deeply sorry and I hope that someday the pain will heal.