God, Guns, and Grits.......

“I can imagine that because a lot of you live with guns as an everyday thing the mentality must be a lot different.”
-Dave Bones
http://www.blogger.com/profile/3333721

Dave bones comment on the post I wrote concerning the late Tookie Williams inspired this post. http://mything1.blogspot.com/2005/12/tookie-dies.html


Here in Georgia, my ancestral proving grounds, and all over the South, we have very liberal gun laws. We like it that way. Reading Dave Bones comments I was reminded of the fact that the gun laws I take for granted are unique. I have owned some type of firearm since I was 14, not including BB and Pellet guns, I started receiving those at the age of 9, and to be honest, some of those pellet rifles were just as dangerous as .22 rimfire rifles.

My mother bought my first shotgun for me at the age of 14, a single shot Stevens 410 gauge, for those of you out there in the know, yeah, it was a damn good shotgun for rabbits and squirrels. Moms was hardcore country and capable as hell. I guess she felt that her five sons should at least be able to do the things she could do.It would not be the last firearm she would purchase for me. There would be two more until I was able to do so myself at the age of 21. As I have stated before, my Mother’s family was, and still is in some cases, deep undercover country folks. They had and still have a tradition of hunting and most of us, my cousins and I- male and female, were happy to learn the skills and carry on the tradition.

Guns were everywhere in my Grandparents household, loaded and ready to fire, as if they were strategically placed so someone in the family could get to a gun anywhere in the house if they needed to. Years later, when I was older, I was told stories of the “bad old days”, and I knew perfectly well why there were guns all over the house. Besides it was a normal thing, nothing unusual, most country families had the same practices to some degree.

We were exposed early to the effects of firearms. We saw the game our Grandfather and Uncles brought home, the damage bullets and shot did, and had no desire to play around with a firearm. The rules were simple- you did not handle a firearm without permission, nor point one at something you did not want to shoot. I can remember at the end of a long hot summer day of helping my grandfather in the garden, feeding livestock, and whatever else we were asked to do, my Mother’s family had not been made aware of the child labor laws, a few of us would ask our grandfather if we could do some target practice. Nine times out of ten my Grandfather would go into the house and come out with an assortment of rifles and shotguns and we would walk to the edge of the hay field and shoot at targets penned to bales of hay. Everybody that desired so took a turn with whatever firearm my Grandfather thought they were big enough to handle. My cousins and I become very good marksmen and women. Those of us that grew up and own guns have educated are children in much the same manner.

Most people from countries with strict gun ownership laws are astounded when they hear about my childhood and my exposure to firearms, along with some liberals here in America. Crimes committed with guns back then are no where in numbers like they are now, and I don’t expect them to be. It’s a different society now, very few patient Grandfathers teaching grandkids the do’s and don’ts of firearms. Most children see a real gun for the first time minutes before they accidentally shoot themselves or someone else.This tragic ignorance will not change, no more than thugs buying guns illegally.

Basically the firearm laws in the South have pretty much stayed the same over the years and as I stated earlier, we like our firearm laws. I like our firearm laws. I don’t really know how to explain to Dave Bones our insistence on keeping our gun laws simple. For myself, and some of my family members, we remember the stories of the “bad old days”, and we will never be without the means to defend ourselves and our family- it’s just that simple.

Later’