Taking aim in the altered States

2 days ago , by Richard Lutz

When I was eleven (writes Richard Lutz) a rifle was put in my hand. I was taught how to shoot lying down, sitting and standing up. I was taught how to load and unload. I was taught gun safety, I was taught what to do, what not to do.

This was no secret woodland meeting of extremists. But my summer camp in New England. And looking back, it was considered normal. There was sailing, archery, sports, swimming, singing lots of campfire songs, sleeping out under the stars on beaches. And, as I said, scheduled trips to the rifle range. 

I don’t think my parents minded. I know my school pals back home were seriously envious as I had a National Rifle Association patch sewn onto my jacket. America always has had gun lore. It is in the blood. After all, there’s hunting, shooting clubs and the hotly contest ‘right to bear arms’. Teaching a pre-teen kid how to safely use a .22 rifle was (probably still is) thought of as a good thing, how to safely handle weaponry, how to, in an odd way, save lives while armed. This, in a country where guns are now the major source of death among children.

And, of course adults. And today another victim is named. He’s Charlie Kirk, a hugely popular arch-conservative who was gunned down as he began a public rally at a small Utah college.

He was a firm Trump backer and the 31 year old activist helped the president with the young MAGA vote. And whether you liked his politics or were repelled by them, he had, in this land of free speech, the right to articulate them. Not only in events but on podcasts, radio and tv where conservative fans listened to his hardline rightist populism.

His death is the latest shooting in this nation of political violence. Two Democratic state legislators were shot in their Minnesota homes earlier this year – one died from her wounds. Trump was twice the target of unsuccessful gunmen. And two years before that a hammer-wielding assailant broke into the home Democrat Nancy Pelosi.

where bullets are the voice of debate….

The United Stares, sadly, may laud itself as the land of free speech. But it’s now fast becoming a nation where bullets are the voice of debate. If you disagree vehemently with an opponent, don’t debate, protest or even shout. Just pick up a gun, a fully licensed gun at that, and take aim. It is a sad murderous state of affairs.

And this poison is growing too in the UK, a country that is proud to ban handguns and privately owned rifles (for the most part). Violence is fast becoming the arsenal of political debate. Just watch the news as British mobs storm immigrant hostels in its cities and protestors try to torch the besieged buildings or even dumbly fight the police trying to stop mayhem.

Reason and the voice of democracy is being silenced by violence. Blood is the voice of debate. And whether you admired or despised Charles Kirk, whether you listened to his politicised diatribes or didn’t even know who he was, he is a victim, a victim of this deranged detour into killing and bloodletting.

• Sections of this are from an earlier article