We sit up
here in the northeast corner of the country and look down at the rest of the
states as superficial and a little nuts.
My wife and
I watched a recording last night then went to bed at about eight to read. It wasn’t until we woke up this morning a
six-thirty that we found out that there had been a mass shooting in Lewiston, a
town of thirty-seven thousand – the second-largest town in the state.
Maine is the largest state east of the Mississippi river, and one-third of our state is wilderness and unpopulated. Forty-four percent of Maine's population live in coastal towns that comprise only twelve percent of the states area. Excluding tourism, logging is one of our
largest industries. It is hard to drive
down any rural road and not be passed by a logging truck.
Because of Maine’s
rural nature and the surrounding wilderness, hunting and fishing have historically
been in the blood of Mainers. As a result,
we have one of the most lax gun laws in the nation.
Perhaps it is
time we address that.
Our culture
is changing. Over the last few decades
we have had more and more people moving to Maine and with them have come attitude
changes. We have a drug problem that is
supplied from out of state, and this year we had white supremacists
demonstrating in Portland, our largest city.
For most of people of rural Maine we have believed that mass killings can't happen here.
The man committing
the atrocity in Lewiston had a profound and known mental problem, but he could
not have accomplished the mass carnage that resulted without a weapon designed for the mass killing
of human beings.
We will hear
from Republicans' thoughts and prayers, and a diatribe about the need to
address mental illness. But it’s the gun.
No one needs
a semi-automatic assault weapon to hunt, and no one needs a pistol with more
than a six-round capacity.
When I came
to Maine sixty years ago everyone in rural Maine owned multiple firearms: shotguns
and rifles. You were allowed to
transport your rifle or shotgun in a gun rack or visibly in your car with the
ammunition locked in your glovebox or trunk, provided you had a hunting license
and it was open season. You could own a
pistol but could not transport it as it wasn’t considered a hunting
weapon. No one considered these laws constrictive. There were only occasional gun deaths, mostly hunting accidents: a woman shot by a deer hunter in her backyard
hanging out her clothes; a Navy man shot by his brother-in-law
while deer hunting (it was rumored he abused his wife) – hunting accident.
The gun
culture in Maine has changed. It was
only a matter of time before the carnage reached here.
More senseless carnage. No place is safe or immune anymore.
ReplyDeleteI am past angry, just extremely sad that this will continue for ever. The man, disguised as a police officer, who killed 22 people in Nova Scotia smuggled his guns across the border from Maine. The cops were absolutely useless in stopping the rampage. Sort of ran around in circles not knowing what to do.
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