Gun Nuts Media

For those of you hatin’ on the NRA because all they do is support hunters, and they don’t support “staunch 2A advocates”, apparently there are some hunters that feel like the NRA doesn’t support them either.

The bone of contention in this particular issue is that in the legislation that would have created the Brown’s Canyon Wilderness, it would have also closed off an access road, which the NRA believed would have limited the access of disabled hunters to the area.  The NRA’s position as I understand it was that by closing the access road, hunters that chose to use ATVs would not be able to get to the hunting areas; so they fought the law and apparently won.

This upsets the writer of the editorial, because he doesn’t like ATVs; which turns out to be his entire motive.

In a nutshell, OHVs are carving up our public lands like a cadaver, and it has to stop.

So, because he doesn’t like ATVs, but the NRA has decided to defend the access of all sportsmen, then clearly the NRA is bad, right?  Unfortunately, the author let his personal bias against the NRA and off-road vehicles color his writing – and it ruined any point he may have made.

See, I don’t like ATVs very much.  I feel like if you’re going to go hunting, you really ought to be walking into the woods.  But, if the use of ATVs is legal and responsible, than there isn’t any logical reason to restrict their access.  In this case, the NRA was correct to defend the hunters that chose to use the motorized vehicles to access the hunting area.

Just because you don’t like something, doesn’t mean that it should be illegal.  Like I said, I think the NRA did the right thing here, and the author of the editorial is just grumping because he doesn’t like ATVs.

Although not a true “pirate” by the accepted definition of the word, Felix von Luckner was quite possibly the last truly great sailing “pirate”.  Using the 245 foot SMS Seeadler, he sank almost 30,000 tons of Allied shipping during World War One – while causing only a single casualty.  Of course, this is only more remarkable in light of the fact that Seeadler was a three masted windjammer during the age of coal engines.  In fact, she was the last sailing vessel to be used during a war.

Pirates who hijacked a Japanese tanker off Somalia earlier this week are demanding a U.S. warship shadowing the vessel back off, the wife of the tanker’s foreman said Friday.

The Navy did issue a response to the pirates:

I jest, they did not blow up a freighter full of benzene.

I’ve been following these piracy stories off the coast of Somalia with some interest, actually.  The concept of modern piracy is fascinating; despite not being in the age of sail any longer, piracy itself is alive and well.  In lesser developed areas, such as the Somali/Nigerian coasts, we’ve seen a significant spike in pirate attacks, hence the increased presence of the US Navy.

The Somali pirates are my “favorite” modern pirates – rarely are they a rag-tag band of screw-ups, but rather they are usually experienced fighters with decent equipment.  Plus, since there really isn’t an effective central government in Somalia, they can basically operate with impunity.  The US Navy can’t watch ever freighter that goes in and out of the area, and the Somali pirates are pretty skilled at evading detection.

In my opinion, an effective way to deal with the pirates in the area would be a revival of the Q-Ship concept.  While not particularly successful against German subs during WWII, a merchant ship that was heavily armed with a well trained/experienced crew hold its own against a small pirate force, as the local pirates do not have access to submarines.

When I first started this blog, I wrote a lot more essays than I do now.  Lately, I’ve become a bit more of a news/current events/opinions blog; but every now and then I have essays that I want to write.  A lot of the time I don’t publish them here – but today I’m going to make an exception to that.  An editorial in a Wales paper got me thinking about “the gun culture”.  While the author never explicitly uses the phrase “gun culture”, it is exactly what he’s talking about.  Well, not exactly I suppose.  What he’s talking about is his perception of the American “Gun Culture”, which more often than not is an incorrect perception.  This quote at the end of the article pretty much sums it up:

…but the gun will remain a regrettably destructive but enduring symbol of a nation’s otherwise admirable romance with liberty.

He’s right – not in the regrettably destructive part, but that for a lot of Americans, firearms are an integral part of our “romance with liberty”.  As an aside, I really love that last phrase, “romance with liberty”.  It really does describe how I feel about personal freedom; I am deeply in love with the concept and ideals of liberty.

However, I digress from the subject at hand; which is that of “my gun culture”.  What is “gun culture”, anyway?  Webster’s says that culture is a lot of things, actually.  The two definitions that I believe describe my gun culture best are these:

3: expert care and training

5 d: the set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic

If the word “culture” is used in “gun culture” as the first definition, than what we have is “gun expert care and training”; I like that.  It indicates that my gun culture is one of safety, professionalism and courtesy.  The second definition I listed supplies the usual context in which we use the phrase “gun culture” – i.e. the set of values that gun owners all share.

However, the phrase “gun culture” doesn’t come together until you combine the two definitions – yes, the gun culture shares a set of values, conventions, and practices amongst ourselves, but what are those?  Well, they’re clearly laid out by the first definition I listed: Expert care and training.

That’s what my gun culture is all about.  People from diverse walks of life, men, women, college grads, military personnel, dedicated to preserving a group, a culture built around expert care, safety, and training.

My gun culture started with my father, and the words “Son, you don’t mess with these without my permission.  A gun is something to never be handled irresponsibly” – since that time it’s grown to include many friends and fellow bloggers.

What is your gun culture?