For those of us who grow up in “gun cultures” where firearms are merely another tool and fact of life, getting your first gun may consist of getting a pint-sized .22-caliber single shot rifle almost as long as you are tall when you are a child. It is a simple and expected rite of passage that is a mark of growing expectations, trust, and new-found maturity.Then what happens for most normal people is they grow up. Guns stop being an important part of their lives just like the toy soldiers do.
We’re generally accompanied by an experienced and patient relative — a father, grandfather, aunt, or older sibling — and the time we spend with those first firearms fills us with nostalgia in later years. The adventures spent afield plinking at cans and paper targets or hunting is remembered as much or more for the bonding and the fellowship as it is for the experience of shooting a gun itself.
Not so for a small minority though, who grow more and more attached to their guns. Some of them, suspecting something is wrong with their obsession, become gun rights fanatics as a way of justifying it. At that point, all connection with reality is lost.
These are the folks Romney was begging for votes over the weekend. The irony is there really are not that many votes there. The passionate ones who turn up for the NRA convention and write pro-gun blogs are actually a small minority of the gun owners at large. The membership of the NRA is only a few million, smaller than many large cities, and most of them according to some reports are anything but gun-rights fanatics.
What's your opinion? Could the vocal brashness of their message combined with tremendous monetary support from the gun manufacturers fool people into thinking they're stronger than they are, as a voting block I mean?
Wouldn't many gun owners turn their back on Romney for his obvious flip-flopping on gun issues, or his support of big business, or his anti-women positions or just because of his personal wealth?
I think so, what's your opinion?