Dear Editor: Johnson #2

Dear Editor,

Not to be too negative, but this is getting ridiculous! Mr. Johnson’s latest representative statement, “People do not control guns. Guns control people” has become reductio ad absurdum (reduced to absurdity).

Although I can understand his reasoning, as he mentions addiction later on in his latest letter, it really should come as no surprise that he should stand upon such a blatantly ridiculous statement. In the past, Mr. Johnson, by his very questionable reasoning, has seemingly given life to what should be otherwise known as an inanimate object!

As an example, he returns to the report from earlier this month, concerning a “gun on campus” at Missoula’s Hellgate High School (at least he didn’t mention any possible correlation to the name of the school!) Other than the fact that this was a report, which only people can instigate, it was the report that seemingly controlled the resulting situation and not the gun itself. Again, it WAS the people who posed the perceived threat, not just because they reportedly had a gun in their possession; not even because of what they might do with that gun, but because of the fear generated by their possible intentions for having said gun.

This fact cannot be made any clearer. Common sense dictates that a gun, an inanimate object, cannot pull its own trigger, or even pick itself up, load and aim itself.

Sadly, Mr. Johnson gives an autonomy to guns, which they do not, indeed, CANNOT have. Mr. Johnson would do well to remember this fact before he spreads any more of his questionable rhetoric!

Charles Haddon Shank

Whitehall, Montana