From: John Vanderbur
Greensburg
As I write this letter, I peer through my kitchen window and toward my small woods and see a couple of squirrels chasing each other up a tree and I smile.
I was born and raised on a small country farm in Southeast Decatur County.
As a boy, one of my greatest pleasures was hunting. When squirrel and rabbit hunting seasons were in, I loved to grab my 410 shotgun and go on the hunt. During those years I killed many rabbits and squirrels and I would always take them to a very grateful neighbor who loved fried squirrel and rabbit.
One day as I completed my hunt for squirrels, I laid the squirrels in the trunk of my car and as I looked down at them I came to the realization that I hunted for the pleasure of killing.
From that day to this, I never hunted again.
When I was a boy, I loved hunting and I loved my gun. As an adult, I have come to loathe both.
A great transformation has taken place in our culture. Americans are now immersed in a proliferation of guns.
It has been estimated that there are over 300 million guns in America. It goes well beyond having a shotgun for small game, or a rifle of sufficient caliber to hunt deer. We now have semi-automatic rifles. These rifles are manufactured to kill human beings, not game.
We have a collusion of gun manufacturers, NRA, and cowardly politicians to allow this to happen, all in the name of wealth and political job security.
I could go on and on about gun manufacturers, NRA, and politicians.
Today I will give you one example of their influence. In the 1990’s, the NRA lobbied Congress to limit the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention’s funding after the CDC financially backed a study that found a strong correlation between having a gun in the home and an increased risk of homicide.
In 1996, Congress passed a budget amendment prohibiting federal funds from going toward research that would advocate or promote gun control. The author of that bill is Jay Dickey (R-Arkansas). He later stated he regretted doing that. There have been many heart-wrenching accidental gun tragedies in the home and the NRA didn’t want any facts on that subject.
On December 14, 2012 I came home from work, turned on the television, and much to my horror, I learned of the Sandy Hook Elementary School (Connecticut) slaughter.
Twenty first-graders and six school employees were all shot to death by Adam Lanza with a semi-automatic rifle.
As I saw the faces of the pure innocence of these children, I wept. I, to this day, can’t imagine how their parents ever got through this.
I thought perhaps this would be enough to end this type of pure evil. I was wrong. To the NRA, gun manufacturers, politicians, I ask: is there not one fiber of your being that dictates your moral obligations?
