How many of you have attended a hunter’s safety course or had their kids attend a gun safety program?  Maybe your child participates in a shooting team at school or an after-school organization.  Maybe you’ve attended a shooting clinic or gone to a nice, well-built and run shooting range?  Chances are, if you’ve done these things or a myriad of others, the NRA has helped to make that possible.  In a lot of ways, the NRA Foundation works to provide the resources we need now so that we and our children can enjoy the shooting sports in the future.

One of the ways that the NRA Foundation raises funds for these and other programs is through the Friends of the NRA program.  The FNRA is basically a coalition of local groups that put together fund-raising activities that fund firearms education, youth shooting teams, and many other activities that help to ensure the longevity of the shooting sports.  Half the money raised by the groups in a given state are guaranteed to be spent in that state through grants, while the other half is used to fund activities with a more national scope.

In Louisville, the local FNRA group has been busy setting up their annual banquet, but they’ve also been holding drawings for guns and gear, as well as manning a “Wall of Guns” booth at the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot.  The drawings and such are an important way to raise money for the program, but the big-ticket item is the annual banquet.  For a relatively low cost, you get a good dinner, entertainment, access to a silent auction and drawings, and get to have a great time.  The bonus is that all of the proceeds go to the Friends of the NRA, with at least half of it being spent right here in the Commonwealth.  You can buy individual tickets, but there are usually great deals on group packages, where you get admitted to the banquet, tickets for the games and silent auction, and possibly even a bonus such as a firearm or other gear along with it.  If you’re not close to Louisville, there are FNRA events all over the country, so I’m pretty certain there’s a banquet somewhere near you..

So, if you’re of a mind to have a good time, take a chance on getting some great guns and gear, and want to help out a good cause, please buy yourself a ticket or three to the banquets, buy some drawing tickets, and help the Friends of the NRA pay for programs that plant the seeds of our future in the shooting sports.  Even better: contact your local committee and get involved.

Yesterday, a man in Wisconsin was convicted of murder in the killing of his 13-year-old neighbor.  The man, who from all reports is pretty much a life-long scumbag who abused his family and had ‘anger issues’, argued at trial that he believed that the boy had been breaking into his home and stealing things, and that he didn’t mean to kill him.  So, rather than calling the police, he confronted the boy and his mother, pointed a gun at both of them, and fired two shots, hitting the boy in the chest with one.  The child died in his mother’s arms moments later.

To his excuse of not wanting to kill the boy, I say, and I hope that you all will excuse my language, horseshit.

If you use a firearm against another human being, you meant to kill them.  Period. Dot.  The use of deadly force to stop a threat must come with the understanding that it is quite likely that whomever you are shooting is going to die because of it.  Sometimes this use of deadly force is justified, such as in defense of yourself or an innocent.   But it is never justified because you say you wanted to warn someone, or scare someone, or whatever you have in your mind except “If I don’t try to kill this person, they are going to harm or continue to harm me or someone else RIGHT NOW, and I can’t let that happen.”.

This filth admits that he shot a 13-year-old child in front of his mother, and tried to do so again when he fired the second shot.  I’m glad the jury saw through his transparent excuse of “I didn’t mean to kill him.” and I hope his excuse of “I have anger issues” is disregarded as well.

Look, I inherited an Irish and Norwegian temper, and I have, at times, had a lot of trouble controlling it.  Guess what?  I never beat my wife or shot a kid because I was pissed off.  There are definitely times when I can buy the “not guilty due to insanity” defense, such as the deranged piece of crap that shot up the movie theater in Colorado, but this isn’t one of those times.  This isn’t a person whose psyche is so damaged that he can’t control himself.  Rather, this is an individual who chooses to not control himself, and who finally crossed that line where his ‘issues’ irrevocably hurt someone else.

Wisconsin doesn’t have a death penalty, so the most this jerk is facing is the rest of his life in a small room with someone making sure he has food and medical care.  I have issues with the death penalty, but if any case deserves it, it’s this one.

For the sake of the argument, let’s say that his issues went beyond just being unable to control his temper, and that they extended to periods where he lost track of what was and was not real.  If he was, in fact, in that condition, why didn’t he seek help?  Why did he continue to own firearms when he had such a condition?  If he knew he had times when he was dangerous, yet did nothing to mitigate that danger, then he should be held responsible for what he did during one of his less lucid periods.  By the way, I feel the same way about people who are under a doctor’s care for psychiatric issues, choose to stop that treatment, and then hurt someone during the inevitable swing back into mental illness.

People, I’m begging here.  If you have problems to the point where you can’t take a rational look at yourself and say that you’re sure you won’t do something horrible with your guns, quit owning them, even if it’s only for the time you need to get help.  If you have loved ones who have these issues, get them help, even if it means forcing them to do it.  The impact on gun rights when a mentally ill person uses a gun to harm others is beside the point.  Our love of human life needs to be greater than our love of not making waves and our love for not hurting the feelings of someone we care about.  One person harmed because someone didn’t seek or get the help they needed, even if that help would not be welcomed, is too many.