[Vision2020] A reassuring voice . . .

[Tom Hansen]

On carrying guns . . .

http://www.tomandrodna.com/Soundbites/On_Carrying_Guns.mp3
 
Courtesy of the Letters section of today's (August 21, 2014) Moscow-Pullman Daily News with thanks to Nick Gier.

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His View: The gun-crazed hermit of the Applegate
Nick Gier
It was the summer of 1960, and I was smitten. Even though a family friend's daughter had a mad crush on me, I had been seduced by something even more alluring and far less complicated than teenage romance.
I had bought an Army surplus .30-06 Springfield rifle, and I was in love. I spent hard-earned dollars on a new stock and a 3-7x Bausch & Lomb scope. A gunsmith had completely refurbished the bolt action and barrel. This rifle made me feel like a real man for the first time.
In 1962 I graduated fourth in my high school class of 442, and I had earned two scholarships to attend Oregon State University. But I was a loner, had few friends and showed my disgust with modern society at every turn.
At the end of the summer, I told my dad that I was going to take my guns and build a hermit's cabin on the Applegate River. When my dad asked me how I was going to make a living, I said I was going to pan for gold. My father, brother and I once had a very good day on the Applegate with our home-made sluice boxes.
My dad was never forceful or authoritarian (quite the opposite), but he was still able to persuade me that this was a crazy idea. Was this smart kid just several steps away from becoming a Ted Kaczynski?
It was eventually a good woman who made me give up my beloved firearms. When my former Danish wife and I moved to Moscow in 1972, I brought my rifle out from storage to show her. She was not impressed. She told me it was either her or the gun. For 16 years I chose her and a safe home for our wonderful daughter. Homes with guns have far more child deaths.
Armed homes are not safe for women, either. A recent study concluded women were eight times more likely to be killed in the home by abusive armed men.
A fully armed citizenry, as well as militarized police and criminal gangs, have made parts of our cities into war zones.
Denmark's gun death rate of 1.45 per 100,000 stands in stark contrast to the U.S. at 10.2, but some say it is a small price to pay for the freedom to pack heat. For every Dane who kills himself with a gun, there are six Americans who go out in glory with their handy firearms.
Why is the gun death rate so low for the heavily armed Swiss (3.84) and Finns (3.64), but so high for Americans (10.2)? Maybe it is the effeminate lederhosen and the family saunas that allow the Swiss and the Finns to kill each other less frequently.
The Aussies' low gun death rate (1.25) is no doubt due to feminizing everything from "waste tidies" to my "barbie." A real man would bellow "garbage can" and my "grill." There have been no mass killings in Australia since strict gun laws were passed by a conservative government in 1996.
Does having Mounties enforce the law (from horses rather than armored personnel carriers) lead to lower gun death rates in Canada (1.25)? Unarmed English Bobbies (there's that diminutive again) have swat team back-up, but you rarely ever see them.
Along with the English, the police in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Switzerland and Norway do not carry weapons. Fewer guns evidently leads to more trust and, ironically, better security.
Scotland has an amazingly low 0.25 gun deaths per 100,000, so it must be those kilts with no underpants. Is a William Wallace mooning more intimidating than brandishing an AR-15?

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Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares"
http://www.MoscowCares.com
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
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