Please do not alienate Democratic gun owners

[hunter]

71. I've got people in my own family who use guns in entirely utilitarian ways.

I'm not going to dismiss rural hunters who eat what they shoot, or have to put down the occasional rabid raccoon, skunk, or severely injured farm or ranch animal.

What sort of hypocrite would I be if I opposed hunting, but not factory farmed meat? I don't eat much meat, but I have dogs and I don't insist they be vegetarian. If some family member or friend offers a dinner meat from a deer they shot, or a fish they caught, or an animal they raised, perhaps that's more ethical meat than bacon from some horrible factory farm.

But I cannot understand gun fetishes. I wouldn't own a chainsaw if I didn't have any trees, and I feel the same way about guns. Privately owned guns are almost entirely useless as a means of "self defense" or for bringing down a government gone rotten.

My family is of U.S.A. Wild West origins. They skipped the east coast urban experience entirely, the last in the mid nineteenth century, fleeing directly into the wilderness, escaping places in Europe where they were no longer welcome.

My brother still lives in a semi-rural place and has the family guns, some old ones too, but counts them among all the other family crap that will be disposed of just as soon as nobody remembers or cares about the stories attached.

Yeah, woohoo, I've held a gun that belonged to a wild west great grandparent. There's no thrill in that for me.

I don't understand gun fetishes at all. It's just creepy like the stranger with a camera taking pictures of little girls at the beach.