Less than a half-mile from my home, there is a big store that sells all kinds of hunting and fishing equipment. If I wished, I could walk there in 10 minutes or so and purchase an assault weapon more or less like the one used to kill 49 people early last Sunday morning in an Orlando, Fla., nightclub.
Since I don’t have a criminal record, I’m pretty sure I would pass the background checks and get the gun rather quickly. I hate that. There is no way on God’s green earth that these weapons should be readily available to the public. They were made for one purpose only: To kill as many enemy soldiers as quickly as possible on the field of battle.
Now please understand: I’m not opposed to the Second Amendment, which guarantees our citizens the right to bear arms, and I’m not anti-gun. But I am against the vise-like grip that the National Rifle Association holds on Congress. This unholy alliance is preventing us from seriously addressing the national epidemic of gun violence that permeates our society.
I have no problem with guns used for hunting or competition.
Going back to the day that Daniel Boone strolled through Cumberland Gap, our commonwealth has been a paradise for hunters and fishermen. For as long as I can remember, their feats of skill have been chronicled in the Sunday sports sections by terrific writers such as Earl Ruby, one of my predecessors as sports editor of The Courier-Journal, and Art Lander, whose prose graces this website.
I vividly remember the day when a fisherman trudged into The Herald-Leader sports department and plopped the biggest, ugliest catfish I had ever seen on my desk. We dutifully photographed the prize catch and ran the picture in the Sunday paper.
My experience with guns is pretty much limited to U.S. Army basic training at Fort Ord, Calif., in 1967. In order to get out of basic and be deemed ready to defend the nation, we trainees had to pass several physical and mental tests, one of which involving firing the M-16 rifle at targets 50 yards away.
When my turn came, I blasted away at my target, only to have my drill sergeant grab away the rifle and fire it himself. Apparently, due to my poor eyesight, I had not done a good job of hitting the target. But the drill sergeant couldn’t have me flunking the test and so he literally took matters into his own hands.
I think I still have my Marksman’s medal somewhere.
Years later, while covering the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, I took a day off from basketball and swimming to write a column about Lt. Col. Donald Durbin, a member of the Kentucky Air National Guard. He had made our 22-person Olympic shooting team and competed for a gold medal in the category of small-bore rifle, prone position.
On this day, Durbin hit the bullseye on 52 of his 60 shots. I thought that was pretty good, but it got him only 13th in the international field of 70. His reaction was perfect for a career military man: “That was worth the work and the trip. I was prepared. I was ready. I have no excuses.”
Hunting and fishing are good for Kentucky.
When I was heading communications for Kentucky’s Commerce Cabinet, I encountered a lot of folks like Durbin in the Fish & Wildlife Department, which was one of our Cabinet’s agencies. Because of the commonwealth’s abundant lakes and hunting grounds, the sale of licenses makes Fish & Wildlife one of the few state agencies that actually generates revenue for the commonwealth.
Like Durbin, the folks in Fish & Wildlife have a healthy respect for weapons and the folks who use them for the purposes for which they are intended. Hunters do the commonwealth a service by keeping the population of deer and other animals under control. They hunt for sport, for food, and for the sheer love of it.
They are a long way from the killers who have used assault weapons for the purpose of killing their fellow citizens in movie theaters, shopping malls, military bases, and schools.
In the past 15 years, the massacres have occurred on such a regular basis that our senses almost have become numbed. After every mass killing, the same scenario plays out. The Democrats make loud noises about gun control and the Republicans accuse them of trying to get rid of the Second Amendment.
And then, after a few days of sound and fury, it all quietly dies down until the next massacre.
Unconscionably, the NRA and some of its allies argue that we need more guns, not fewer. Their theory is that if more Americans packed heat, then they would be able to save lives by killing the demented individual with the assault weapon. This is nuts. More guns would mean even more violence. Period.
Nobody seems to know what it will take to ease the NRA’s stranglehold on Congress. Is there a point at which even the most ardent NRA supporters will finally develop a conscience? The answer is, probably not. If the massacre of children in a Connecticut school isn’t going to change them, what is?
I don’t want to mess with the Second Amendment. I don’t want to take guns away from the sportsmen who have made Kentucky a “happy hunting ground” since the days that Native Americans roamed the land. I recognize the value of keeping our animal population within certain boundaries.
But let’s separate the legitimate hunters, who would never use an assault weapon either for competition or hunting, from the crazies who find it far too easy to obtain weapons of mass destruction.
No one person or political party has all the answers. We must first concede that America has a problem unlike any other developed nation, and then work together to do something about it. If Congress can’t find the moral courage to ban assault weapons, then heaven help us all.
The classic definition of ignorance is repeating the same action – or non-action, in this case – and expecting a different result. We have let the NRA and its cronies in Congress have their way too long. Now it’s time to try a new approach, a new policy.
Sometimes I feel like going to the sporting-goods store near my home and picketing against the sale of assault weapons. Other times, I think about going into the store and hanging around the gun department, just to see who buys these horrible weapons.
I want to do something. I wish Congress felt the same way.
Billy Reed is a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame and the Transylvania University Hall of Fame. He has been named Kentucky Sports Writer of the Year eight times and has won the Eclipse Award twice. Reed has written about a multitude of sports events for over four decades, but he is perhaps one of media’s most knowledgeable writers on the Kentucky Derby
Mr. Reed, I think your commentary is spot on and I wish it could get better distribution than is provided by the Tribune Newspapers. I will also defend the 2nd Amendment but I doubt that the originators had any idea of what the future would bring with regard to the variety or lethalness of weapons available to the “average Joe”. The NRA’s interpretation of the 2nd Amendment defies all logic and sensibilities. The AR-15 is marketed to the macho instincts of those reared on “action” videos and movies. It’s the biggest and baddest. I understand that it can be converted to fully automatic rather easily. When I see a group of guys and gals dressed in camo with big black assault style weapons draped over their shoulders, I think to myself “what are they trying to prove?” and would I want them as friends.
Second amendment is there to prevent the government from running rough shod over its citizenry … any domestic law enforcement (cops, DHS, FBI, CIA) must only be allowed to carry the same weapons as the citizenry so as not to get the upper hand … if you ban semi-autos, you must ban them from domestic law enforcement as well … that is what the founders had in mind.
Preaching to the choir here, Mr. Reed. AR-15s were banned once; why not again? They are not designed to hunt with; they’re designed to kill people, pure and simple. Here’s my take on the whole thing:
The NRA says everyone should be able to buy whatever weapon they want.
The government says they cannot stop people, whom they have identified as possible terrorists, from buying what ever guns they want.
The NRA supports the terrorists’ right to buy guns.
No one wants to say this, but this is the only conclusion I can come up with.
Mr. Reed: Your article makes me think of what our Founders stated. “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined. The great object is that every man be armed.” – Patrick Henry
“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves from the tyranny of government !” — Thomas Jefferson
“Arms in the hands of the citizen may be used at individual discretion for the defense of Country, private self-defense, or for the overthrow of tyranny.” — John Adams
“The right of the citizen to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a Republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers.” — Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of Patriots and tyrants.” It is its natural manure.” — Thomas Jefferson