That Old Gun
September 30th, 2005 by Syd
My grandfather gave it to my father and my father gave it to me — a humble Winchester 30-30 saddle gun. I took my first deer with it forty years ago, and Saturday, my son, Alex, took his first deer with it. I was really proud of him. He had studied the arcane lore of stalking deer: how to mask your own scents, work the wind, track, and use a tree stand. I had coached him on how to shoot the deer for a quick, humane kill. He listened and accomplished it with a perfect shot through the heart. The deer didn’t run a foot. It was a good deer, a six pointer that the guys at the packing plant estimated at 140 lbs. For Alex, the excitement and sense of accomplishment was profound. Two days later, he’s still walking about six inches off the ground.
For me, it was one of those moments of time compression in which the lives and times of four generations of my family came together coalescing upon the symbol of that old rifle.
Now, I will be the first yell at the top of my lungs that the essence of our struggle for the right to keep and bear arms is not about hunting, but at the same time, hunting is an integral part of our tradition of firearms ownership. There has long existed a sort of psychological divide in the firearms community between hunters and the self defense group with each group showing a lack of interest for the concerns of the other. We all need to increase our awareness that we face a common adversary which does not distinguish one whit between hunting guns, “sniper rifles,” self defense weapons, “Saturday Night Specials,” “assault weapons,” and military collectibles. Our adversary wants to take them all away.
RKBA is about self defense and liberty’s teeth, but it’s also about that old rifle and a father teaching his son how to safely and lawfully handle a firearm and how to track a deer through the woods.