*Ø* Blogmanac | Getting a pop-up? No Charlton Heston here
Over the last couple of days, when I've opened the Blogmanac I've also been getting a pop-up ad for pro-gun lobby organisations.
I don't know what's causing this anomaly. In case readers think the Blogmanac team has finally gone completely troppo, here's an editorial by your almanackist, from the Almanac ezine of October 26, 2002:
* Ø * Ø * Ø *
Disarmament: Tasmania is known internationally for just a couple of things. The southernmost State of the Commonwealth of Australia, of course, is home to the Tasmanian devil, a tough little marsupial popularised by Warner Brothers cartoons.
Then there's Martin Bryant, the world's best spree killer. On April 28, 1996, Bryant, with his trusty gun, roamed through the tourist village of Port Arthur, Tasmania, killing 35 innocent people and wounding another 18. It's a world record we Australians don't want to own.
Like the British and Japanese, as well as citizens of many other nations, we Ozzies pride ourselves on not having a deranged gun culture like our poor cousins across the Big Pond, who it seems cannot even make a movie without having a shooter in it somewhere. Yet we shouldn't be so self-congratulatory; we're almost as bad. There are something like two million firearms in Australia, out of a population of 20 million people. We should have so many computers.
Last week in Melbourne, a student allegedly opened fire on his classmates, killing two and wounding others.
Let's put on our thinking caps for a moment. Apart from madness, or badness, what do these two events have in common?
I grew up on the very edge of the sprawling metropolis of Sydney, where it was not quite bush, and not quite outer suburb. There was bush all around us, and a farm across the road, but it was only a mile to a railway station and there were plenty of houses even if it was a half-hour walk to a shop. It was a blessing to have a childhood in a semi-rural area. I ate blackberries on the hoof and sat by Holy waterfall and drank from its stream -- until about 1966 when housing encroached on Paradise and my mates got a bad dose of the back-door trots from drinking the water.
In many ways my parents gave me great freedom and, like many of my mates, I rambled the streets and the bush most days, when we weren't watching Superman at 4.30. Much of the time that I rambled, I was carrying a .22 Gecado air rifle. We all did, all the boys, from about the age of 11.
No one thought anything of it. Dad taught me very well how to handle a gun safely, something that some of my friends obviously didn't know how to do. Mother certainly wouldn't look up from shelling the peas and ask, "Pip, why are you leaving the house carrying a ... a weapon?" Why should she? I didn't ask her why she was shelling peas. I always had a weapon in my hand, except when eating Coco-Pops in front of Superman at 4.30.
Neighbours would say "g'day, Pip" or smile and wave at the kid walking past their suburban houses, rifle in hand. Then they would go back to shelling peas or digging onionweed out of the petunia beds. That's how it was.
Naturally, having started to shoot at an early age, I was, and probably still am, a good shot, and I loved every moment of shooting. No, not every moment. A few times I would shoot a bird, and I felt awful and it wasn't something I did too often. Today, of course, the thought of shooting a Crimson rosella or a Rainbow lorikeet disgusts and appals me even more than it did way back when. But I was a kid, and that's what kids did in the 1960s, where I lived.
As I say, I loved shooting, and I could easily love it today, because it's in my blood. As a youth I could always get top scores at the shooting galleries at Luna Park and the Royal Easter Show. Unless, of course, they had prizes on offer, in which case the barrels were bent like pretzels. As I grew, I sometimes shot with a real twenty-two, with real bullets, the killing kind. Man, I loved it!
I love the look of a gun -- the blue sheen of gunmetal, the pride in my skill as the projectile cuts neatly through the tiny target I have set up at great distance. The smell of the discharged bullet or lead slug is as sweet to me as freshly shelled peas, or Sunday lamb roasts with mint sauce.
So, what about today, you might ask. Do I like shooting?
No. I love shooting!
Do I own a gun today, or ever go shooting?
What, are you nuts??!! I'm a man, not a boy!!
Abolish the bastards!!! Eradicate them from the face of the longsuffering earth!!!
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip Wilson
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
Over the last couple of days, when I've opened the Blogmanac I've also been getting a pop-up ad for pro-gun lobby organisations.
I don't know what's causing this anomaly. In case readers think the Blogmanac team has finally gone completely troppo, here's an editorial by your almanackist, from the Almanac ezine of October 26, 2002:
Disarmament: Tasmania is known internationally for just a couple of things. The southernmost State of the Commonwealth of Australia, of course, is home to the Tasmanian devil, a tough little marsupial popularised by Warner Brothers cartoons.
Then there's Martin Bryant, the world's best spree killer. On April 28, 1996, Bryant, with his trusty gun, roamed through the tourist village of Port Arthur, Tasmania, killing 35 innocent people and wounding another 18. It's a world record we Australians don't want to own.
Like the British and Japanese, as well as citizens of many other nations, we Ozzies pride ourselves on not having a deranged gun culture like our poor cousins across the Big Pond, who it seems cannot even make a movie without having a shooter in it somewhere. Yet we shouldn't be so self-congratulatory; we're almost as bad. There are something like two million firearms in Australia, out of a population of 20 million people. We should have so many computers.
Last week in Melbourne, a student allegedly opened fire on his classmates, killing two and wounding others.
Let's put on our thinking caps for a moment. Apart from madness, or badness, what do these two events have in common?
I grew up on the very edge of the sprawling metropolis of Sydney, where it was not quite bush, and not quite outer suburb. There was bush all around us, and a farm across the road, but it was only a mile to a railway station and there were plenty of houses even if it was a half-hour walk to a shop. It was a blessing to have a childhood in a semi-rural area. I ate blackberries on the hoof and sat by Holy waterfall and drank from its stream -- until about 1966 when housing encroached on Paradise and my mates got a bad dose of the back-door trots from drinking the water.
In many ways my parents gave me great freedom and, like many of my mates, I rambled the streets and the bush most days, when we weren't watching Superman at 4.30. Much of the time that I rambled, I was carrying a .22 Gecado air rifle. We all did, all the boys, from about the age of 11.
No one thought anything of it. Dad taught me very well how to handle a gun safely, something that some of my friends obviously didn't know how to do. Mother certainly wouldn't look up from shelling the peas and ask, "Pip, why are you leaving the house carrying a ... a weapon?" Why should she? I didn't ask her why she was shelling peas. I always had a weapon in my hand, except when eating Coco-Pops in front of Superman at 4.30.
Neighbours would say "g'day, Pip" or smile and wave at the kid walking past their suburban houses, rifle in hand. Then they would go back to shelling peas or digging onionweed out of the petunia beds. That's how it was.
Naturally, having started to shoot at an early age, I was, and probably still am, a good shot, and I loved every moment of shooting. No, not every moment. A few times I would shoot a bird, and I felt awful and it wasn't something I did too often. Today, of course, the thought of shooting a Crimson rosella or a Rainbow lorikeet disgusts and appals me even more than it did way back when. But I was a kid, and that's what kids did in the 1960s, where I lived.
As I say, I loved shooting, and I could easily love it today, because it's in my blood. As a youth I could always get top scores at the shooting galleries at Luna Park and the Royal Easter Show. Unless, of course, they had prizes on offer, in which case the barrels were bent like pretzels. As I grew, I sometimes shot with a real twenty-two, with real bullets, the killing kind. Man, I loved it!
I love the look of a gun -- the blue sheen of gunmetal, the pride in my skill as the projectile cuts neatly through the tiny target I have set up at great distance. The smell of the discharged bullet or lead slug is as sweet to me as freshly shelled peas, or Sunday lamb roasts with mint sauce.
So, what about today, you might ask. Do I like shooting?
No. I love shooting!
Do I own a gun today, or ever go shooting?
What, are you nuts??!! I'm a man, not a boy!!
Abolish the bastards!!! Eradicate them from the face of the longsuffering earth!!!
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip Wilson
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
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