Holy American Guns, Amen.
I am surrounded by guns. In the rural area of North Florida where I live it is normal to hear gunshots every single day. People hunt on the open acreage adjoining my property. Half way down my dirt driveway, a quarter mile before it joins the asphalt county road, is a thirty-acre dirt pit. This pit has been used for generations of shooters as an impromptu gun range. I don’t flinch when I hear rounds going off at any hour of the day or night. (You know that scene that pops up in country music videos? The one with a half dozen pickup trucks and a bunch of cowboy booted, tight jeaned, shiny young country people drinking Bud Lite around a bonfire? The scene where the guy in a camo ball cap is leaning over the shoulder of his hot bikini-topped girlfriend assisting her to fire his deer rifle at the beer can targets set up at the edge of the party? That’s the pit next to my house.) I can usually determine the caliber and general type of firearm being discharged down there.
I own firearms. I have a state issued concealed carry permit. I served in the military and earned expert pistol and rifleman awards. I know guns. There is a pistol in the draw beside my desk as I type this.
I am a supporter of tighter gun control and regulation.
What?!! How in the world can a guy with several guns want more gun control?
Newtown. Aurora. Virginia Tech. Columbine. Tucson. My heart has been broken. I’ve changed. How can we accept that these place names are now interchangable with gun tragedies? My mind is made up. We can no longer afford to ignore the terminal cancer in our society.
In each of these tragic events the shooter(s) should never have been permitted to be near a loaded weapon. But, because firearms are so easy to obtain, so easy to buy without detailed and thorough background checks, the mass murderers succeeded in ruthlessly killing and maiming innocents.
It is time for this nation to take a clear and sober look at the violent culture that has arisen over the past few decades. And, because it seems that there can be no reasonable debate or discourse when it comes to the subject of the Holy American Gun, the Federal government will be pressured to act decisively. And this time, it will.
Some of my friends and neighbors are what could be called “preppers.” When you live in a farming county where storms, hurricanes and even wayward raccoons on power transformers can cause blackouts lasting days at a time, preparation is a prudent step. I have extra food, water and fuel here on my ten acres. I have a stand-alone LP gas generator wired into my house’s electrical panel. I plant a fairly large vegetable garden surrounded by banana and fruit trees. I’m prepared. But what sets me apart from my prepper neighbors is that I don’t have a weapons arsenal. They do.
A neighbor (let’s call him “Scott”) has almost seventy weapons. I am not exaggerating. Scott has dozens of handguns and almost every rifle available to the common man. He has several variants of the AR-15, three different AK-47‘s, two customized SK’s, an Uzi, and an actual machine gun. Yes, a .45 caliber Thompson macine gun. And these are just the guns that I’ve seen first-hand or fired with him over the years. He buys ammo by the pallet. I’m not kidding. Scott, and some other guys in our area, chip in and order large quantities of ammunition from wholesale Internet dealers. When they are ready to place an order, they usually call me and ask if I need anything. They have it delivered to a commercial company down the road where there is a loading dock.
I’ve asked my arsenal-owning friend why he has so many guns. His eyes glaze over, he gets very serious and he says, “The balloon is about to go up, Robert.” I think it is Scott’s variation of “the shit is about to hit the fan.”
I’ve discussed this situation at great length with my prepper friends and neighbors. Here, in abbreviated form, is the synopsis:
1. The New World Order crowd will deliberately implode the U.S. economy.
2. Society will break down. First in the cities, then the rural counties. The city dwellers will form mobs and in great hordes they will come to the country seeking to rob us and steal our water, food and weaponry.
3. Somewhere in this apocalyptic scenario, the Federal government will declare martial law and round up all the so-called “Patriots” to be sent to FEMA re-education camps. Troops will comb the countryside looking for resisters and and shoot armed citizens on sight.
4. Only the armed resistance will have a chance to survive and start the New Republic.
That may sound a lot like a “Red Dawn” movie script, but it is the blueprint for the near future held by many people that are close to me. None of whom, by the way, have ever served a day in the armed forces. I ask them what they plan to do when an M-1/A-2 Abrams main battle tank rolls into the horse pasture next to their house. The consensus is that at least they would die fighting. There’s something pathological at work here.
That pathology is affirmed by alternative media like radio host Alex Jones:
The challenge is that there seems to be no middle ground upon which gun advocates and gun control supporters can come together. The guys around here get very excited and agressive whenever the topic of gun regulation is brought up. And the gun grabbers won’t be satisfied until there are no guns at all in private hands.
This is a recipe for societal disaster.
This afternoon, on the way to town, I drove past Scott’s property and noticed something had been built just inside the tree line. A bunker. A sand bagged, timber-roofed, reinforced and concealed fighting postion facing the road.
It’s on.
