What do we expect?

Let me preface everything I have to say with this: I don't care for hunters. That is my bias, but I recognize it, and it has little to do with the rest of what I have to say.

Life is hard. We struggle for money, and some people achieve it through "any means necessary." It doesn't help that statistically we will remain in the same socio-economic level as our parents. So the rich will be rich and the poor will remain poor.

I know that these concepts don't completely relate quite yet but stay with me :)

Culture is such a broad and encompassing concept, but very accurately describes certain peoples ways of life. Within the hunting culture, there's a mindset: you hunt the deer, and you shoot the deer. What's wrong with shooting a deer, probably nothing. (Again this is not my battle today). Some fathers use hunting as a way of bonding with their sons. Some people escape society through deer camps, or go see their buddies and get a little drunk. Is there anything wrong with that? Absolutely not. The problem occurs when hunters lose their guns.

Wait what??

Don't worry, it's not gonna happen anytime soon. Hunters will get to keep their guns because of two things. Their second amendment rights, and the gawdy amounts of cash pumped into the NRA.

I'm not going to sit here and claim that hunters are all upper middle class Americans. I understand that plenty of poor rural Americans love to hunt as well. But there is another group of people benefiting from that "savior" of an NRA. I'll give you a hint. Every business in eye view of my father's pawn shop has gotten to experience those people in the last 3 months.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people. Ya I get it. Be impressed with your little slogan while PEOPLE continue to die. Not by stabbings, not by being "jumped", because those are people killing people. People are being shot and killed every day. PEOPLE. Not "bad" people, not "dangerous" people. PEOPLE.

Well maybe those people should own a gun. So they can protect themselves. Maybe we should all just become super human, immortal, invincible, people with tanks. Because that's how the conversation is going to continue. We allow everyone to have guns, and when the next violent weapon comes out, drug lords will own it first because they ahve the money, and then everyone else will want one to protect themselves from it. If you can't beat them, join them.

.......great......

And my grandchildren will never be able to go out and play, because children will be bringing guns to school to protect themselves from predators.

We don't NEED guns. Plenty of "more developed" countries get by just fine without them. I like to picture Western Europe as our peaceful, educated parents, and the U.S. is like their 18 year old testosterone driven son. All he wants is money and power, he hasn't really figured out yet what life is really about.

I could argue that people that think they "need" guns are driven by fear, but it could be argued that I want guns gone because of fear. And yes, that is exactly why we don't need guns. Because of fear. It's wonderful that some kids get to go play outside on a beautiful summer night and catch lightning bugs and their parents don't have to be anywhere near them. Unfortunately, that wasn't me. I got to grow up in the culture that only sees guns as weapons. No one I knew hunted, but we all knew about guns. Most of the kids I grew up with hadn't ever even been camping, but we get to see all those "benefits" of everyone getting to own guns.

The U.S.'s policies are created by Upper Class White Males. Unfortunately none of those three characteristics represents the majority of the world that we live in. I don't expect them to know where I came from, but I wish they would try and understand.