From: "E.J. Totty", [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Speech by Bo Lindevall, Information manager for the
>Swedish Hunters Association, at Intergoup,
>the group of EU-parliament members who are engaged in
>hunting Issues.
---snip---
>As guns become increasingly glamourised and their criminal
>use grows at an alarming rate, hunting provides a healthy
>counter-balance to the development of a so-called 'gun
>culture.'
Steve, & Lars,
In the interests of maintaining a cogent frame of
mind where shooting is concerned, I invite everyone who
is a shooter to consider to continue referring to themselves
as part of the "gun culture", because we are.
As with many things in this world, those who seek
to deprive us of a thing -- for whatever reason -- will use our
terms and descriptors to hobble us, condemn us, ostracize us,
and finally to dismiss us.
We do ourselves a great disservice, by playing their
game of words, and by allowing them to describe us in ways
that we find objectionable, or associate us with the worst dregs
of humanity, by stealing our terms and thence use them against
us. What sort of person is it, I ask, that will endeavor to equate
an honest law abiding citizen with a ruffian, or a murderer,
or the worst sort of lawless derelict?
A criminal is just that, and not something else.
He may have been a member of our culture, but not
any longer.
Do we define all members of a race as criminals because
one has embarked upon a criminal career? Then, why change
the rules for member of the gun culture?
These scurrilous prevaricators have it as a theme that
in order to dispose of us, they must resort to every negative
association possible. Ergo, we have 'guns', therefore we are bad.
Since we are bad, we are part of the culture of the
criminal. Since we are already of the culture of the 'gun', we are
therefore criminals too, since the criminals also resort to their use
in their evil ventures. Thence, we are all of the 'gun culture'.
Interesting though, that the police and soldiers are not.
It was at one one time, a great honor to be known
as a member of the 'gun culture', because in order to have that
distinction, one had to be an accomplished shooter.
Well, if we are going to be referred to as something
else, what will that something be? Do we allow our enemies to
define us in less than enviable terms? Or do we just carry on as
before, and ignore the buffoons and control freaks, and sustain
our positions?
To be moved is to be displaced, and that simply means
that if we allow the weak minded to define our terms for us, that
we shall not be long of this world.
I will be always be a member of the 'gun culture', and
when asked, I shall seek to remonstrate vehemently of the ill
association which my culture has been likened.
It is the same as referring to a standing European culture
as a culture of the worst definable wretches and expecting not
a word in reproof from a member of that culture.
To offer up not a word in our defence is just to lie
down and be run over. The gun culture is our common identity,
and our common bond across every cultural line, no matter
where we may find ourselves.
In the end, every hunter, every shooter, to a man
and woman, we are members of the gun culture.
Remember: United we stand, departed we fall.
--
=*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*=
=*= Liberty: Live it . . . or lose it. =*=
=*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*= =*=
ET
Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org
List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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