Style Weekly
Founding Fathers Were “Gun-Toting Crazies”
Slander. Hate. Bigotry. These are words that come to mind after reading the following passage in The Score (Street Talk, July 7): “Concealed-weapons permit-holders celebrate their new McDonnell-given right to carry guns into bars as long as they don't drink alcohol. We're not worried, 'cause you can smell these gun-toting crazies a mile away: When you can get a whiff of deer-urine-soaked camouflage mixed with PBR breath and the desperate scent of loneliness — run.”
Although you may write The Score, I have a score to settle with you.
Our Founding Fathers were “gun-toting crazies.” Although your brain might have been damaged by inhaling something other than gunpowder, it is with sincerity that I hope you understand this: Those who trade liberty for so-called “security” deserve and will reap neither one. A similar statement was first espoused by Benjamin Franklin.
Finally, your argument demeans the people who choose to open carry. Would you express an equally denigrating opinion of a woman who chose to have an abortion? How about someone who exercises his or her founder-given rights, such as freedom of speech or freedom of religion? Would you persecute such people as well? There is a little something called the Second Amendment, after all. You almost seem to dehumanize these people. By denying their humanity, you are only casting doubt on your own.
Newspapers should be the pedestal supporting and uplifting the statue of civilization. Instead, sporadic outbursts of arrogance, like those conveyed by the article, serve only to strike the final nail in the coffin of print media. What a shaky pedestal newsprint makes.
Matthew King
Henrico
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