Please do not alienate Democratic gun owners

[Yo_Mama]

237. I'm not personally in the gun camp, unless you categorize anyone

who doesn't want to take everyone's guns away as being in the gun camp. I suspect many here do categorize it that way.

But one thing I will never do for historical reasons is tell some black man in GA that he isn't allowed to own a gun because it makes some rich white idiot elsewhere nervous. I hate to put it this baldly, but there's a lot of closeted racism and classism evident here.

My reaction (other than deep sorrow and shock at the latest incident, which is shared by all) is that some people here are working as GOP strategists. If that is not their intent, then I'd like to broaden their perspective.

I'm looking at the last election returns. I'm thinking of people that I know and respect, and how they react to something like this.

And the thing is, I know why they react that way. They have their reasons.

If you hunt to eat, if you have a business and have been robbed, if you have a house with kids in it and there have been home invasions nearby, if you are a farmer and you shoot the hogs or the deer that get into your fields and could destroy half a harvest, if you've ever shot a rattlesnake or cottonmouth curled up on your front step or by the kids swing set, if you've ever had to deal with getting into your car with a seven foot gator blocking the way - some of the rhetoric on DU is literally bizarrely insane.

I utterly understand that what is appropriate in a rural place may not be appropriate in an urban setting. I do get that. But still it flames my innards when I see Mayor Bloomberg escorted by highly armed bodyguards effectively claiming that some old black man in his house shouldn't have that protection. When Mayor Bloomberg drops the armed escort, then he can preach to that old guy. Not before, in my book.

There's a whole lot of blind spots here, and they are by no means just on the gun side. A lot of people here think that "they" shouldn't have firearms. "Those people."

We cannot let the Democratic party become the party of elitism, and we are dangerously close.