Recent violent shooting incidents in the news raise the question of the role of the gun within the life of those who need this lethal crutch within their grasp. It makes one wonder, is firearm ownership a sign of arrested development in a person’s character? Needing the weight and power of a firearm to show society that they exist and that they have the power to take life?

Mixing firearm ownership with a fractured mental state of mind is a recipe for unleashing pain, hurt and death. To be in a state of mental disharmony and with legal access to a firearm is a slow motion walk to a graveyard.

There is much currency is the claim that those who enjoy killing animals for fun have mental compassion infertility in respect of having an urge to inflict death on a non-human creature. This ecosystem of animal abusers who through legal or illegal avenues give expression to their desire to inflict pain and death in a prolonged fashion on animals is a viable threat to our society.

When animal killers leave the hunting field to carry out their destructive urges within the domestic or social setting, the havoc unleashed via the barrel of a firearm makes all the days practicing on non-human targets worthwhile and allows the shooter to mentally shutdown.

The sense of power the occasion brings is intoxicating to the shooter, lost in a mental mist while mumbling ‘my gun, my rules’.

Gravediggers will never be idle so long as the firearm culture exists. How many more graves must they dig because some person decided having and using a firearm makes them complete.

John Tierney

campaigns director, Association of Hunt Saboteurs