The Light At the End of the Gun Barrel

     In this essay, I will quote from an Associated Press article published November 3, 2017, by McClatchy DC Bureau.  The piece is headlined, "Assembly eliminates Wisconsin's minimum hunting age"
     The word "eliminates" can mean remove or get rid of, but it can also mean to murder someone.  An atmosphere of eventual probable human deaths suffuses the bill passed by the Republican majority Wisconsin state Assembly.
     "Residents of any age, no matter how young, could legally hunt in Wisconsin..."  As if to pound the idea into our heads with a hammer, the article's author wrote, redundantly, "...of any age, no matter how young..." as if to write, "Do you understand what this means?  Do you perceive the lunacy of this bill?"
     The current law allows twelve year olds to purchase hunting licenses "or hunt with a gun unless they're participating in a mentored hunt.  Children as young as 10 can hunt under that program."
     Ten.  Is that not irresponsible enough?  Apparently not.
     "The Republican-authored bill would allow people of any age to participate in a mentored hunt, effectively letting anyone hunt.  The measure also would eliminate [that word again] the requirement that a hunter and mentor have only one weapon between them."
     More guns, of course, will mean less chances of bloody accidents.
     Here's something I didn't know: "Thirty-four other states already have no minimum hunting age, according to the Wisconsin Hunters' Rights Coalition."
     In a country politically warped by the NRA, it's fitting that there are hunters who felt the need to put together an organization called the Wisconsin Hunters' Rights Coalition.  Didn't they realize that American gun owners are already untouched by moral justice?  It's similar to how White men feel like their rights as American citizens are constantly threatened by Affirmative Action, illegal immigration, feminism, the Black Lives Matter movement, and political correctness.
     The bill passed 57-32, with three Republicans voting against it, while four dipshit Democrats voted in favor.
     Sensible arguments against the bill included the idea that little kids armed with guns would put other hunters at risk of being shot.
     Democratic Representative Katrina Shankland "warned Republicans that younger children can't pay attention to their mentors.  'To allow...a toddler, a two-year-old (to carry a gun), and I'm not being hyperbolic because someone will allow it, is dangerous...Other hunters in the woods are not going to choose to get hurt by a child with a rifle.'"
     Her statement, strange as it is--the idea of someone not choosing to be shot is a weird way of putting it--reflects the reasonable idea that letting a small child have a gun is akin to letting a small child drive a car, or vote, or join the Army.  The last case, actually, is practiced in many parts of the world, with its hundreds of thousands of child soldiers, all armed with various weapons, so far along in violent experience, beyond Representative Shankland's hand-wringing about little Wisconsin kids using adult killing tools.
     Who is the bill's author?
     "[Republican] Rep. Rob Stafsholt of New Richmond, told reporters...that not every hunter uses high-powered rifles and he believed he was capable of handling a .22 caliber rifle when he was eight years old."
     Therefore, logically, every eight year old can handle a .22!  What's the problem?
     During the Assembly floor debate, Stafsholt said "...that his daughter killed a bear at age 11 but [he] held her back from bear hunting when she was 10 because she wasn't ready...We're returning the choice to the parent."
     The bill goes to the state Senate, it will probably be voted on next Tuesday, and if it passes, Governor Scott Walker must sign the bill to make it law.  I wonder what the Governor, a man well-known for his idiotic, destructive, bone-headed choices will do if the Baby Face Killers bill comes to his desk?
     That thirty-four states already have no minimum hunting age means that a majority of Americans probably don't even think this kind of legislation is batshit crazy.
     Representative Rob Stafsholt argues disingenuously that "not every hunter uses high-powered rifles," making it seem as if every "responsible" parent, or mentor, will have their child or charge use small caliber weapons (which also kill and maim).  He apparently assumes that Wisconsin parents who love the shit out of their guns and who endlessly defend their misunderstanding of the Second Amendment will never supply their children under the age of ten with high-powered weaponry.  I recall footage of a young Texas girl receiving instructions at a shooting range.  Her teacher was (note the past tense) a former soldier with a typical crewcut and camo outfit, showing the girl how to fire a machine gun.  Being a kid lacking the proper strength to use such a weapon, the gun's kick aimed it upwards at the man's head, killing him instantly.  Lesson over.
     I realize I'm spoiling the fun of imagining children under the age of ten stalking around in the Wisconsin woods, armed with weapons legally bestowed upon them by Assemblymen and -women who work on behalf of the National Rifle Association, an organization that corrupts our willfully greedy leaders in state capitals and in Washington, D.C.  The lesson of the dead children in Newtown, Connecticut, the gun massacre that so moved President Obama that he insisted a moral turning point had been reached and then proceeded to do nothing about it, is that politicians in America, generally, don't really give a shit about all the children killed by guns every year.  They don't care about children in the Middle East killed in American drone strikes, either.  President Trump doesn't care about all the children drinking unsafe water in Puerto Rico as I write this.
     This bill heading to the state Senate on Tuesday and possibly to Governor Walker's desk, offers further proof, to me at least, that Republicans are stupid.

                                                                               Vic Neptune