As some of you know, I’m a full-time photographer, and target shooter at a local gun range. Two years ago, when the wedding photography industry went into its rapid collapse and my cashflow started sinking badly, I started selling off some of my shooting supplies to raise money. If you look at the attached list of stuff found in the home of the Colorado movie theatre Batman Shooter, those things listed in yellow are the things you would NOT have found in my apartment two years ago. According to this, I owned a (macabre?) “arsenal.” I would bet everything I have that you could find about the same list in a million other homes across America. Really. A million. Gun sports are a VERY widespread hobby. (BTW, I wear “Tactical Boots'” because they give my crappy ankles the support they need.)

I have a permit to do so, and I carry a pistol. And yet, I’ve never shot anyone, and I hope & pray I never have to do so in self-defense. I have no desire to dress up like Batman or any other macho hero and spray bullets in a movie theatre or a school. In fact, I have no desire to see people gunned down on TV or in video games. But I get the same kick out of landing a good shot at the range with a .45 pistol or an AR-15 “assault-style” rifle as I do from landing a ball on a green from 100 yards out with a 9-iron. How many people get the same kick from landing a well-placed arrow in a bale of hay from 30 yards? How many from throwing a perfect strike over home plate at the ballfield, or a bulls-eye with a dart at the pub? How many from landing a deer with a rifle or a fish with a spear? (Not to mention how many people collect guns for their historical significance?

The difference between mass murderers, and me and the million other serious collectors, gunners and other types of target shooters, is this: they’re nuts and we’re not.

And yet Obama and Bloomberg and Feinstein and their legions of paranoid followers keep yelling that this...

As some of you know, I’m a full-time photographer, and target shooter at a local gun range. Two years ago, when the wedding photography industry went into its rapid collapse and my cashflow started sinking badly, I started selling off some of my shooting supplies to raise money. If you look at the attached list of stuff found in the home of the Colorado movie theatre Batman Shooter, those things listed in yellow are the things you would NOT have found in my apartment two years ago. According to this, I owned a (macabre?) “arsenal.” I would bet everything I have that you could find about the same list in a million other homes across America. Really. A million. Gun sports are a VERY widespread hobby. (BTW, I wear “Tactical Boots'” because they give my crappy ankles the support they need.)

I have a permit to do so, and I carry a pistol. And yet, I’ve never shot anyone, and I hope & pray I never have to do so in self-defense. I have no desire to dress up like Batman or any other macho hero and spray bullets in a movie theatre or a school. In fact, I have no desire to see people gunned down on TV or in video games. But I get the same kick out of landing a good shot at the range with a .45 pistol or an AR-15 “assault-style” rifle as I do from landing a ball on a green from 100 yards out with a 9-iron. How many people get the same kick from landing a well-placed arrow in a bale of hay from 30 yards? How many from throwing a perfect strike over home plate at the ballfield, or a bulls-eye with a dart at the pub? How many from landing a deer with a rifle or a fish with a spear? (Not to mention how many people collect guns for their historical significance?

The difference between mass murderers, and me and the million other serious collectors, gunners and other types of target shooters, is this: they’re nuts and we’re not.

And yet Obama and Bloomberg and Feinstein and their legions of paranoid followers keep yelling that this is about guns. Half the country wants to follow Connecticut’s lead this past week and place more and more restrictions on law-abiding shooters, as though that would solve the problem. As though that maniac at Sandy Hook would have said, “Damn! I was hoping to murder my mom and steal her guns and massacre some helpless live targets at the local grade school today, but now they’ve passed laws against that sort of thing. ‘Guess I’ll have to find something else to do.”

Meanwhile, we read today that Dr. Lynn Fenton, who treated the Batman shooter, warned police of the danger he posed, and she got nowhere. Now she and others face 14 different lawsuits from the victims’ families for their failure to act. Think of what might have happened instead in this case, if years ago we had spent our gun-grabbing energies building a national database to track and tie together gun sales, ammo sales, and input from law-enforcement authorities and qualified medical officials.

On the other side, you’ve got the NRA and other loonies who think “Liberty” means we can trade lethal weapons like baseball cards, or buy and sell them like cupcakes. They cite the Second Amendment, screaming about the words “Shall not be infringed,” while ignoring the words “well-regulated.”

We let our emotions rule us and the same crap happens over & over again: The truth comes knocking on the door, and we frantically tell it to go away because we’re busy FEELING our way to false solutions.

The older I get, the nuttier my countrymen look to me. It’s not a pleasant feeling.