WHY I SHOOT - A QUESTION ASKED

Roberta posted the other day about why she shoots and asked readers to comment as to the same. The replies are worth a read. I've written a lot about that in the five months I've had this blog but decided to answer it here as it's a bit too long for a comment.

Why I shoot?There is a part of it that is as simple as self protection. My Mom was a Law Enforcement Officer and I heard firsthand the abuses she saw against other women in the course of her work, women for whom their only crime was to be small and timid against a raging bully. Women who had yet to learn that evil does not go away by submitting, but by fighting back. So she taught me to shoot and the reasons for which she did needed no voice. Individually, collectively I believe it's a right of mine, as a law abiding citizen, whether I am male or female, large or small. That being the right to protect my body and my interests for which I've toiled. And I would defend with each breath, against any interference with that liberty on which our country was founded.

The Founding Fathers affirmed us that right, one over our own bodies and minds. But with the right comes obligation. Our country was not founded on the principal that government would take care of our every need, including protecting us at every instance. To have the law enforcement power to achieve that alludes to an Orwellian world I would not wish to live in. I carry because I am empowered with not just the right, but the duty to take care of myself. I am sovereign in my protection of myself, charged with that moral duty and supported by the Second Amendment and the steady hand that holds the grip. It is a decision that I alone make, to carry responsibly, to be proficient, to be sure. I can no more imagine giving that up, than the sibilant intake of breath as I squeeze the trigger.

Then there is simply the sheer love I have for that which is history, of the mechanical workings of objects which support strength. Planes, trains, steam engines, old tools, and yes, the gun. There's an attraction to old tools and old machines, the human values they represent. Nothing that withstands history gets built without brilliance of design, a laboring effort and the dreams of man. Some say a gun is just a killing instrument. Yes, in essence it is, but it is also the pure mechanical force which can keep one alive. The utter potency of the will to live is instilled in some things more than others, and in my old weapons I can feel it. Taking that, holding one in my hand, feeling the power and the recoil shudder through me is empowering. Using my own will and ability to place the precision of liberty onto a small piece of paper, it's magical.
...- Brigid