'Urban' vs 'Rural' Gun Control - Debunking Hillary Clinton's Attack on Bernie Sanders

[markpkessinger]

8. Your comments amount to an ignorant, outrageous slander of rural culture

I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, where many people lived on farms, and where hunting culture was deeply entrenched in the local culture. I have lived in NYC for the past 33 years since college, so I understand this issue from both sides. My father hunted. My brother still does. I did, too, for a couple of years in high school, but never really cared for it. In our school district, the first day of buck season and the first day of doe season were school holidays. (If they hadn't been holidays, 95$ of the boys, and a large number of girls as well, would simply not show up.)

Most of these folks wouldn't call themselves "gun fanciers." Most don't see their guns as a hobby, or as collectibles, but rather, they regard them as tools. Your slander of these folks as a bunch of "right wing, rural gun fanciers" who "come packing to cities" and who "trade the lives of kids, spouses, etc., to preserve their access to guns." Are some of them racist? Of course -- one will find racists among every population subgroup, urban or rural, one cares to look at in this country. Are there some crazy gun nuts among them? Yes, there are, but they can be found in urban areas, too. But the overwhelming majority are certainly NOT crazed. Most, even though they may own guns and use them for hunting, have little patience for those who carry their guns around with them everywhere they go. Most don't even oppose reasonable gun regulation, once they understand what is actually being proposed. Unfortunately, the NRA's propaganda campaign is slick, and it has been very successful.

These folks have concerns about gun regulation. Granted, most of the concerns are unfounded, but they are not, on their face, unreasonable ones. My brother has discussed his concerns with me. My brother is 60-years old, and has been an avid hunter all of his life. He currently owns around 9 rifles of various caliber, 4 or 5 shotgun guns of various gauges, and maybe a dozen handguns, most of which are antiques, and are either cannot be fired in their current condition, or, if they could be fired, ammunition is no longer manufactured for them. The two handguns of his collection that can be fired have been registered, as they are required to be..

Now, out of this entire assortment of guns, my brother only ever bought two of them. The rest have been handed down through the family for many generations. (That rather blows a hole in your theory that people like my brother "keep the legal weapons industry humming.&quot He is concerned that if he is expected to register all of his guns, the fees attendant to registration would mount up pretty quickly. What's more, he is concerned that once the state realizes it has this new source of revenue, the temptation will be to hike those fees every time there is a shortfall somewhere in the budget. Now, I realize those concerns can be addressed (antiques through grandfathering language), and issues related to registration don't really come into play in any federal gun laws.

My brother is not a stupid man. He is a very successful small business owner and a community leader. He can be reasoned with and brought around on this issue. But when someone like my brother hears someone like you make such outrageous, slanderous statements about him and people like him, it doesn't exactly serve to make him receptive to hearing the other side of the argument. Statements like yours only confirm in the minds of , rural folks what many of them already suspect: that urban liberals often make sweeping, and false, judgments about rural people, and tend to think of all rural citizens as if they were extras for the film, "Deliverance."

Bernie understands someone like my brother, because there are plenty of him in rural Vermont. Statements like yours do great damage, both to the cause of gun control, and to the ability of the Democratic party to reach rural voters. Shameful.