Bears And Terrorists

There is much discussion about limiting guns right now. It is due to the many shootings we have had as of late. I think this is an on-going discussion that I want to weigh in on. I’m an Alaskan girl who was a card carrying member of the NRA back when I was sixteen. I think the idea of taking guns from people is ludicrous. Here’s my humble opinion.

You have to know where I come from. I am from Alaska. Alaska is a very different place than here in Southern California. Alaska is like the wild west. People go up to hide in Alaska. They move up there to live off the land. They move up there to escape the cement jungle down here in the lower 48. (Have you figured out why we call it the lower 48?). I grew up around guns. I grew up in a small town where people had gun racks in the back window of their trucks, WITH guns in those gun racks. Everyone I knew went hunting. Whether it was for spruce chickens, moose, or caribou-everybody did it. Even my mom went spruce chicken hunting and she was a city girl from the lower 48. At camp, part of our activities were shooting guns, besides dodge ball and hiking, we shot pistols, .22s, and shot guns. (Between me and you, girls were always better shots at the first).

I told you I was a card carrying member of the NRA at 16. Here’s how it happened. For P.E., in the small town I’m from, we shot .22 rifles. Yes, you heard me right-.22 rifles during P.E. class. The most important rule we had for shooting .22 rifles was to make sure everyone was in place before you started shooting. You didn’t want to be shooting while other kids were walking in front of you. That was a kind of important rule. They broke us up into twos, we went up to the P.E. teacher’s office, got our .22 and a box of ammo. Then we walked over to the line where there were these big targets at the end of the old gym. The teacher taught us to shoot laying down, kneeling and standing. We learned to load and unload our guns. We learned to site the gun before shooting. We learned how to carry the rifle from the teacher’s office to the line-that you don’t wave the gun around. Imagine HS students given rifles and ammunition in school, during school hours, to shoot targets. Imagine that. And the weird part in all that was that there were NO SCHOOL SHOOTINGS during that time. NONE! And we didn’t live in some weird utopia. Most kids in the class DIDN’T get along. But it never dawned on us to go take a gun and shoot people with them. When we finished the class, our teacher gave us an application for the N.R.A. We were certified now. We were all card carrying members of the N.R.A.

Guns are very useful. Especially, living up in Alaska where there are big creatures that want to eat you. Bears are plentiful up there. And bears are very hungry and grumpy. The mama bears are especially irritated. I was taught at a very young age that a small bear cub IS the most dangerous bear. Why? Well because there is ALWAYS a big mean mama bear right around the corner who doesn’t like anyone messing with her babies. She can’t be reasoned with. She’ll bite off your head and ask questions later. No exceptions.

Now people may say that Alaska is ok for guns because there ARE creatures that want to eat us. But guns aren’t just for creatures that want to eat us. They are for our protection. Protection against tyranny! What did Hitler do before he declared a Holocaust against the Jews? He took everyone’s guns away. We live in a mad, mad, mad world now. I know I’m not saying anything new. The government doesn’t have a right to take guns away from us. We fought the Revolutionary war, with guns and ammo. We fought against tyranny! We weren’t going to take it anymore! And we didn’t! There are terrorists who have killed us. There are more terrorists out there right now, who are planning on killing more of us. They used guns. Why would you disarm people now, when they need guns to protect themselves now, more than ever? We can’t be that stupid.

I know I’ve said nothing new. But I’ve said my piece. Taking guns away from law abiding citizens is simply a recipe for disaster. Being able to own guns is our constitutional right. And I for one, will fight to keep the right. We can’t go down without a fight. There are simply too many bears and terrorists out there in the world.