Dear Editor: Response to Gerald Johnson #2

Dear Editor,

This is in regards to last weeks letter to the editor from Mr. Gerald Johnson.

After reading the above-mentioned letter last week, I felt the need to write a bit of a correctional rebuttal. I will try to be as positive as I can, so here goes. First, let me say that I’m not writing as a pro-gun advocate, although I will not condemn those who own them for protection or to provide meat for their families. I do not own a gun (likely never will again) and though I used to own several guns, I never used them for anything but target practice. This leads into my main point: “Guns don’t kill people, people with guns kill people.” I realize there are those who disagree with such statements, but the fact remains that if a person wants to kill another, they will do so with whatever comes to hand, even if it’s just their hand (or a rock). Mr. Johnson’s statement that ‘ more guns; more gun-deaths’ is quite true. Without the gun, it cannot, in any way, shape or form, be called a ‘gun-death’! All joking aside; I can understand Mr. Johnson’s angst. Having been through ‘hell’ (war is hell), that he is so against guns or their use is only natural (I abhor violence of any kind). I agree that the easy access to guns & ammunition makes it easier for these criminals to go on a shooting spree & while removing guns from the equation may slow them down for a bit, if a person feels like killing another or a bunch of ‘anothers’, he or she will do it with whatever means they have.

Are Americans, or anybody else for that matter, addicted to guns? Sure, there are doubtless those out there, in every nation (or most every) in the world that have guns just to have them. Yes, there are those who possess them for the sole purpose of killing other people, but for the most part, I feel safe to say, people who own guns own them for two main reasons; to protect what they deem theirs & to provide meat for their families. ‘“Second Amendment Zealots”, as Mr. Johnson so eloquently puts it, are not, in the overwhelming majority, I would say, the criminals, but law-abiding citizens (who are the ones who OBEY the gun laws). The majority of these “Second Amendment Zealots”, post any sort of gun ban law, would be of the criminal element rather than good, law-abiding citizens!

There are many other statements made by Mr. Johnson that I have a strong disagreement with, but I think I’ve made my point. I do not wish to start a fight, but if Mr. Johnson wishes to give up his guns or just not own them in the first place, that is his prerogative. But if he wants to ‘shove it down our throats’, that is when things begin to get religious...er, ‘ridiculous’. I’ll leave his politics alone...

Charles Haddon Shank

Whitehall, MT