HOW I SEE IT: So, here’s how I really feel on guns

Gene Kidwell
Published: October 5, 2008

Sandra Drown’s letter Sept. 25 prompts a clarification of my letter Sept. 20 regarding columnist Gordon Meriwether’s representation of the recent Town Council meeting.

She wrote that she fully agreed with his column, and that I had “hit it right on the head” with my response. That cannot be, as Mr. Meriwether and I seem to be polar opposites in our respect for the Second Amendment.

Our daughter often says that my tongue-in-cheek writings to the CSE are too oblique. I generally disagree, but in this instance she may be correct.

In response to Mr. Meriwether, it occurred to me that his outrage could be ameliorated, not by further restrictions on the battered Second Amendment, but by reasonable constrictions on First Amendment rights:

- freedom of speech, but only with the proper standing to speak

- freedom to petition the government, but only if the government actually represented you

- freedom to assemble, but only for those eligible to be in the assembly

- freedom of the press, but only for eligible residents.

Certainly these are reasonable constraints that reasonable people such as Mr. Meriwether could support, so I offered them to the council as permanent solutions for Mr. Meriwether’s perplexity.

It did not require a sophisticated content analysis to recognize all the prerequisite elements of the catechism of the far left, gun ban movement Mr. Meriwether incorporated into his column:

1. Demonize and vilify all guns. Always call them “weapons,” not firearms. If they are ugly or scary looking, call them “assault weapons” or “automatic weapons.”

2. Place all blame for societal ills on those freely available, totally unregulated weapons.

3. Demean and denigrate gun owners. Call them names like “Bubbas,” “rednecks,” “bullies,” “intimidators.” Address their psychological and physiological deficiencies (the need to carry “the symbol of their manhood”). Label them as “rude or misguided.” Present yourself as sophisticated, intellectual and simply better.

4. Present a cultural/
intellectual knowledge of “weapons” to bolster and legitimatize the authority of your educated assessment that “weapons” have no place in our modern society. (“I grew up in the Deep South among hunters….” )

5. Take great offense with every presence of “weapons.” Feign the pain, if necessary, but always be bold in representing the thousands of like-minded victims intimidated by the presence of guns.

6. Most importantly, demand governmental redress. Expect the government to remedy your discomfort with sweeping rules/regulations that apply to all. Champion the “public good” over the troubling Bill of Rights by advocating reasonable restrictions.

Thank goodness for Channel 21. I caught its replay of the council meeting at issue last week. What an eye-opener! No visible intimidation, no panic rush to the doors, no council member hiding behind his desk, no chief of police calling for back-up, no town attorney demanding arrests.

Wow! What a relief.

Perhaps Mr. Meriwether overplayed the scene a little too much in his CSE recap to serve a greater cause. (See item No. 5 above.)

Gene Kidwell is a resident of Culpeper.