3/7/26
I got a BB gun when I was six years old. The pump Daisy was a reward for having my tonsils taken out. I had almost worn it out four months later at Christmas when I got a very strong BB gun. I do not remember the brand, but you pushed the barrel down to set it. It was stronger than anything my friends had, other than pellet guns.
For my eight birthday I was given a well-used Remington semiautomatic .22. It had a high-capacity magazine holding 17 long rifle bullets. I hunted with that gun until I got a new .22 when I was 12. It was like the old one, semiautomatic with a high-capacity magazine, but it was not worn out and seldom jammed, unlike the old one,
When I was ten I got my first shotgun, a single shot 410. And I had access to three other shotguns, all 12 gauges. The Winchester 1996 pump was grandaddy’s gun and it still had Daddy’s 1938 hunting license, his fist, rolled up in the stock.
There were two semiautomatic 12 gauges. One with a short barrel and flash suppressor was for quail. I never got the full story of how that Navy guard gun got from base after WW2 to daddy’s hands. Something about a friend still in service taking it apart and mailing it piece by piece to him. But the friend never came to pick it up.
The humpback Remington had a long barrel and would reach out and hit doves a long way away. I shot many doves with it. The short barrel one I used mostly for rabbits but I did shoot a few quail with it.
I got a Marlin lever action 30-30 deer rifle for my 16th birthday. As an adult, I got a 7mm Mag deer rifle as a going away (or good riddance) present from the bus drives and garage crew when I left Pike County after 14 years.
I have bought more than a dozen pistols, mostly semiautomatic, with high-capacity magazine. The first pistol I bought was a well-used .38 police special that I still carry. And the one I shoot most since the bullets are inexpensive for practice is a semiautomatic .22.
When Clinton banned “assault weapons” I quickly bought two, an MAK 90 that is the same as an AK 47 but with a thumb hole stock, and a .223 Colt AR 15 style rifle. Both have multiple 30 round magazines
All this is to say I know guns and have had and shot a variety of them all my life. I know guns are tools, just like a hammer or ice pick. All can be misused, but the tool itself it not evil or to blame.
Since I was old enough to know, I have been an adamant supporter of the 2nd Amendment. I believe the Bill of Rights when it says owning and using guns is a right that is not to be infringed. I have fought every way I could against laws that punish law-abiding citizens like me but have no effect on criminals.
For years Jay Bookman was an editorial writer for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. He was reliably liberal to the point I read everything he wrote and assumed the opposite was true. Cinthya Tucker was his editorial boss and even more liberal, if possible.
I grew up spreading the Atlanta Journal on the floor and reading it after school, long before I could hold it up without problems. And I read the combined Journal and Constitution on Sundays. Tucker and Bookman, and the bleed over of liberal bias into news articles, made me cancel my subscription to the AJC I had had since I was 21, but we still got it at work
In the 1980s every time Bookman wrote an anti-gun editorial, always fill of half-truths, false information and outright lies, I gave a membership in the NRA to a youth, in his name. I would send him a thank you note from them. I always got their parents permission to give them the membership. I hope that helped create some pro-gun rights youth that grew into pro-gun adults.
Bookman left the AJC a few years ago, for some reason. Now he writes his propaganda for another group. I see it online and, unfortunately, in the Griffin Daily News.
Read his articles. Think about them. Do a little research on anything he says. Decide for yourself.
Many folks ask why I read his stuff and listen to liberal media. The bible says, “know they enemy.” I keep up with what they say, research to find the truth, and make up my mind what is true and what is hype. You should do the same.