I got my first gun when I was about 14 years old. It was a bolt-action 4-10 gauge shotgun that my father gave me and taught me to shoot. I hunted rabbits and squirrels. Eventually I moved up to a 16-gauge double barrel Stevens to hunt pheasants which I still have to this day.
Back then, the NRA was a hunter/gun safety organization, and there were no semi-automatic assault-style guns available. The Second Amendment was just the second amendment and did not occupy the perverted role that it plays today in our culture.
My question is, “what happened?” Why do we have so many mass shootings and atrocities committed with guns today? What has changed? What can we do about it? For most of my life I would never have imagined that someone would come into a school or another public place and start shooting.
I have more guns now. In addition to my old double-barrel, I have a revolver which I load with birdshot to shoot poisonous snakes. It’s handy and convenient; I also use it to shoot flying squirrels that get in the attic of the old cabin and an occasional bat that makes it way inside. For several years I had a Ruger .270 bolt-action rifle for deer hunting and, if lucky, put enough venison in the freezer for the year.
I know guns. What I don’t know is what has happened to us that has led to this “gun carnage.”
Our experiences are very similar. In the army, I qualified on the M1 Garand, the M1 carbine, the .30 caliber machine gun, the .50 caliber Ma Duece, and the grenade launcher. Have no desire to repeat that for almost any reason. I do have an M1 carbine for historical purposes–built by the American Typewriter Company during WWII.
I’m happy to learn that you do not have a grenade launcher. Don’t know about a rifle made by a “typewriter” company though!
Oops! In Finland you cannot build a house, not to talk about a railway, if preservation people find flying squirrels, not to talk about observing their leavings on the site. And bats´ habitats are sacrosanct. We do live in different worlds…