Fear, paranoia over gun problem
I am writing about Kenneth Cobb’s outdoor sports column from Feb. 17 entitled “Crossbow a challenge for hunters.”
Normally, I read his columns with a great deal of pleasure, but this one was different. Like the writer of this article, I’ve never even held a crossbow, but I always wondered about how crossbows handle, what they are like to use and what potential they have as a hunting tool.
Instead of getting practical information about how crossbows are challenging (as the title advertises), the writer uses the article as a vehicle to promote the same old fear mongering of the National Rifle Association. The writer claims a “biased news media, along with the gun-control fanatics” are blaming all law-abiding gun owners for another “bloody tragedy” to “promote their gun-control agenda.”
After a statement like that, the writer should take a good look in the mirror and ask himself who the fanatic is and who’s the one with a biased agenda.
I am a law-abiding gun owner and all I want, like most patriotic Americans, is just some smart gun control which prevents mentally ill people and criminals from acquiring and keeping guns. I don’t want to take anyone’s guns unless they are mentally unstable or violent lawbreakers.
By painting all of us who want rational gun control with the wide brush of “gun-control fanatic,” the writer is stoking the fear and paranoia which prevents sensible solutions to America’s gun problem.
Richard K. McClane
Elkins