Extremists and Guns...

I got a little kudos in the Chico News and Review when my piece on Sam Aanestad (pictured above) was mentioned in a year-in-review article. Felt good. The Chico paper said:

"On April 22, at a Paradise Tea Party Patriots gathering, Republican congressional candidate Sam Aanestad reportedly said President Obama was a Muslim. Allan Stellar wrote in this paper that he’d asked Aanestad if he believed the president was a Muslim, and he said indeed he did.

At a press conference about a month later, Aanestad explained: “What I said was that the president’s background is Muslim. He was brought up in the Muslim culture, his father was a Muslim. Does that mean he follows the practices and customs? He says he is Christian. Who are we to judge?”

It is always good to embarrass a political extremist.

This area of Northern California is loaded with extremists. The extremists here tend to be on the right side of the political aisle. Today, a prominent local politician posted an article on her Facebook page stating that the Sandy Hook shootings were part of a government conspiracy to take people's guns away. I kid you not.

The Sandy Hook killings have all the gun loving nuts in a frenzy. There are plenty of gun nuts here in rural California. When Obama was elected back in 2008, the check out clerk at the local convenience store that we affectionately call "the Dome store", told me that he was sure that Obama was going to take his guns away. Anybody who actually thinks Obama wants to take your guns away--if you are that paranoid to believe that--then you should have your guns taken away! It is obvious that you are incapable of rational thought if you believe that. I'm quite certain that a person who believes "Obama wants our guns" is unable to responsibly own a firearm. They are just too irrational and paranoid to possess a weapon that can easily kill someone.

We also live in an area that is filled with Cannabis growers. Most of them are local Rednecks who are anything but hippyesque. They aren't into "peace and love"--no, these Stoned Cowboys are more into "Guns and Monster Trucks". They are mostly paranoid of anything affiliated with government. Libertarian Anarchists of an uneducated variety.

Frankly, I don't think anyone who is raising a drug that makes you paranoid, should be allowed to own a gun. Cannabis grows should be gun free zones with substantial penalties for bringing a gun into a grow.

No, I hate guns. I hate the cavalier attitude people have about them. I hate the politics of gun owners who think that owning a gun, even a machine gun, trumps my right to feel safe taking a walk in my neighborhood. I hate the fact that a teenager on our ridge, put a gun to his head and killed himself last year. And I fear it happened again, as a number of sheriff's cars, and ambulance and the county coroner rolled by our house earlier this afternoon. I suspect we've had yet another gun tragedy on our ridge.

It is time for gun owners to pass the same sorts of tests that a person has to prove in order to drive a car. There are no rights without responsibilities. Time to get the guns out of idiot's hands.