Depends on where you stand; how you see it!

The tenor of our debate has gained renewed interest in recent days. Just what is and is not acceptable or appropriate language is of concern. And, after the shootings at a “Congress on the Corner” event in Arizona, language that involves guns is being examined.

Americans who come from the rural parts of our country defend guns as important to their way of life. To have a political figure speak of “not retreating, but reloading” simply comes natural. And to put the sign of “cross-hairs” over a congressional district simply shows that this is a targeted seat. To load, aim, and target are natural ways to speak in rural America: just as natural as living in defense of the Second Amendment.

However, Americans who live in urban parts of the country can also say that guns play an important part in their daily lives. Having lived most of my life in metropolitan areas, I hear of guns every day. They are the instrument of death on our city streets. I cannot open the local paper, watch the evening news, or listen to the radio in the morning without hearing of shootings or killings. The language of loading, aiming, and targeting is unfortunately a part of my life (without even owning a gun).

In order to provide protection for the “general welfare” of the American citizen, it is important for each of us to appreciate the situation of the other.
There has to be a protection of the right to be safe, as well as a protection for the right to own and operate a gun. The gun represents something different in the rural spaces than it is in the urban streets. In one instance it may be a way of life. In the other it is most often a way of death.