Guns, Fun & Camouflage

Friday 21st December

There is a shop in Walton called ‘Guns, Fun & Camouflage’ and never was a shop so inappropriately named.  It actually specializes in air-rifles, and ex-army clothing and fishing gear but the linking of Gun and Fun seemed shocking to my mind even before the Sandy Hook massacre.

There has been a bit of a backlash in America too, the home of the Gun, over this latest abomination.  Obama trying to reach even a modicum of consensus with the Gun Lobby; shares in Smith & Wesson falling and Republican Senators falling over themselves to condemn lax Gun control.  But I suspect that very little will ever change.

Americans have a totally different concept of Freedom than Europeans.  In America it is the Freedom of the Individual to – well actually to do whatever their money and power will buy, and let no man stand in their way.  In Europe we realise that the Freedom of the Individual must be tempered by the Freedom of the rest of us, let us call it Society (sorry Maggie – but it does exist).  I am all for Individual Freedom, so long as the exercising of that Freedom does not impinge on or deny anyone else’s Freedom.  And that line which one draws is a constantly shifting and wavering one, as the pendulum swings between how much Freedom the individual is allowed and how much should be controlled by everyone else.  But in America not only is it considered absolutely a right (not entirely covered by the constitution) but almost an obligation as an American to be able to defend (by owning a Gun) himself and his family from lunatics who are stupid enough to be carrying a Gun.

Almost as stupid as the argument that in order to deter potential Nuclear Attack we must have an even bigger and deadlier Nuclear Arsenal in order to beat the shit out of them too if they dare to annilihate us.

Grow up, the lot of you.  Guns are for killing, so stop using them unless you want to wind up dead too.