Bigotry and Gun Control

The root of bigotry is ignorance. Most bigots choose to purge or avoid any and all information which conflicts with their bigotry. Anti-gun bigotry is fostered by an anti-gun, self-righteous news media, anti-gun politicians and bureaucrats, anti-gun educators, and anti-gun physicians.

The TV program "30 Days" recently aired an episode wherein a Pia Lalli, a Brockton, Massachusetts gun-control activist spent 30 days living in the gun culture. People like Pia are victims of the dishonest and myopic propaganda emanating from these sources and, rather than learn the facts, choose to similarly victimize those around them. It is clear that this self-righteous anti-gun ignorance was the mindset with which Pia entered this 30-day episode of her life and she struggled to maintain that ignorance.

It took time and patience, but it appears that she eventually gained a bit of appreciation for the fact that gun crimes are committed by criminals -- not law-abiding and trained gun owners, and that a gun is a valid, often essential, tool for recreation and protection. I'm not convinced that her conversion is complete. I hope she continues to participate in the shooting sports and that she fully comes to realize that many lives have been saved by guns in the hands of good people.

I frequently hear of gun-control advocates say it is too easy to buy a gun and that there is nothing to stop them from buying a gun then going out to shoot up some school. That type of comment illustrates the problem. Rational people never think in those terms -- to run down to buy a gun so they can shoot up a school. Gun-control activists assume that because they think that way, we all want to shoot up schools. If gun-banners want to avoid guns because they don't trust their own behavior, that's fine. But don't assume that my behavior is likewise untrustworthy. Talk radio host Michael Savage has it right: "Liberalism is a mental disorder."