Six Dead In Wisconsin...Film At Eleven

Here we go again. In Wisconsin today another moron has gone off his rocker and shot and killed a half dozen other hunters in an argument over a tree stand located on private property. Several more people were wounded.

Just watch the media celebrate this news event with endless coverage and listen to the politicians and professional “TV talking heads” pontificate about “what we as a society need to do to stop such incidents.”

Would everyone just stop for a few minutes here and think, please?

The anti gun spin has already started, even on Fox News. “What kind of gun did he use,” they all ask. Like it matters to the dead people what caliber the bullets were, what length the barrel was, or whether the gun’s stock was wooden or composite. “Did it look like a military weapon, or did it look like an antique?” Pluueaseeeee!

This story has made it all the way to the country of Turkey. (Is Turkey hunting legal in Turkey…just wondering?) In the Turkish Press they say:

“Vang, a naturalised American citizen originally from Laos, was carrying a high-powered SKS assault rifle, that was out of ammunition, when he was arrested.”

Well thank God that his evil “SKS Assault Rifle” ran out of ammunition or the entire state of Wisconsin might be dead. And this from Louisville, Kentucky’s Fox41 News:

“Asked to leave, the trespasser, wearing blaze-orange and carrying a semiautomatic assault rifle, opened fire on the hunters and didn't stop until his 20-round clip was empty, leaving five people dead and three wounded…Van was carrying an SKS 7.62-mm caliber rifle, a cheap but powerful semiautomatic weapon, authorities said.”

“Police identified the shooter as Chai Vang, 36, a hunter from St. Paul, Minnesota, who is a member of the Twin Cities' Hmong community. While authorities do not know why he allegedly opened fire, there have been previous clashes between Southeast Asian and white hunters in the region."

"Locals have complained that the Hmong, refugees from Laos, do not understand the concept of private property and hunt wherever they see fit. In Minnesota, a fistfight once broke out after Hmong hunters crossed onto private land, said Ilean Her, director of the St. Paul-based Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans.”

Could this story be any more perfect for the media? “Another dang foreigner has committed a heinous crime with a GUN.” AHHHHHHHHHH, everyone run for the hills.

Now here is a little information—some call it facts and figures—to augment the hype that you’re going to be inundated with over the next few weeks. First of all, as you may recall by reading my previous postings, I grew up hunting on my grandfather’s 350 acre farm. I own three rifles and two shotguns. As of this moment, I also happen to not own any bullets.

In spite of having access to the property today, I have not spent a single minute in the woods hunting for the past twenty years because of my fear of this exact situation—poachers—and getting shot, accidentally or otherwise. Our land is literally overrun each fall with individuals that know they are on private property and that they do not have permission to be there hunting.

My uncle used to place a salt block in a clearing across the lake from our houses so we could enjoy watching the deer feed in the late afternoon. He stopped when someone shot a doe within one hundred yards of my mother’s house. The trespassers tear down the “posted” signs that my cousin places around the property almost as quickly as he puts them up. My mother asked the game warden what she could do about the poachers and he told her, paraphrasing, “that if she could call him and hold the intruder until he could get there that he would write them a ticket.” Needless to say we haven’t seen many tickets written.

My first point here is this. We don’t need more laws that will take my guns away from me. My guns, residing comfortably in the closet, are not a threat, and three of the five are of the hated “semi-automatic” variety. What we need is effort and money spent to enforce the laws that we already have on the books. It’s already against the law to shoot at somebody, folks. I can’t throw a chair or a rock or a punch or a basketball (did you see what the NBA players were up to this weekend) at you without risking running afoul of the law.

My second point has to do with the bad reputation people like Mr. Vang give gun owners and the hunting population. You never see national headlines that read “300,000 armed citizens take to the woods on opening day of deer season, no one killed…” No, of course not. Yet it happens every year in many if not most states. In Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, they close schools and businesses shut down because they know that on opening day of deer season most of their students and employees are going to be in the woods, in camouflaged attire, chewing tobacco, and looking for something to shoot—LEGALLY.

My final point is to address the weapon that Mr. Vang was wielding (you only wield a weapon when committing a crime, right?) The SKS is an inexpensive imported rifle designed by a Russian named Simonov in 1947. It was replaced in the mid 1950's by the AK-47, another weapon of military origin that is vilified by the anti-gun mobs and the media. The Chinese and various other countries also manufactured the SKS with Russian approval.

While the SKS is rugged and quite capable of surviving being carried through the woods in all kinds of weather, it is not a “sniper” weapon or even considered to be that accurate. In fact, it sorta sucks when it comes to long range hunting, so I propose that Mr. Vang was enthusiastic but not very well informed when it comes to his choice of weapon.

There are any number of standard looking hunting rifles like my Marlin 22 magnum that cost a lot less than the SKS and which are equally deadly at any range within 100 yards. I’ll also point out that, while this weapon is not legal for deer hunting due to it’s small caliber, it was quite capable of terrifying a number of rabbits and squirrels with great frequency in Lower Alabama in the early 1970’s. By the way, the standard clip holds ten rounds.

What the logic out there seems to be is that scary looking guns with large(r) capacity ammunition magazines are more trouble that “average” looking guns with small(er) capacity magazines. I propose that any old inexperienced moron with a great big old dangerous looking gun is no more a threat than a polished killer with a pea shooter.

The crime is shooting at people, not owning a certain type gun.

Get It?