THE BANG'S ALL HERE!

The death of conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk lit up the internet. (No pun).

Every possible exclamation of opinion, vitriol and noise from the wing-nuts, countered by the rightful anxiety of gun control advocates, has added nothing new to the discourse — for or against.

The placard above (sic), held aloft, was carried around Washington Square Park in New York’s Greenwich Village. It is a legitimate question and deserves an answer.

The answer is no.

Boswell, quoting Samuel Johnson, said “patriotism is the last refuge of  a scoundrel”. That’s harsh. Kirk was not a scoundrel. He was wrong but well-intended, an articulate ideologue expressing his ultra right-wing view of the world. None of us who believe Kirk was wrong should be in fear of saying so.

What we should fear is living in a nation in which there are nearly 400 million firearms, many more guns than people. That’s nuts. Forty thousand people died from guns last year out of an estimated population of 342 million. Still, there is no political will sufficient to bring about change. The gun hawks in Congress haven’t gone anywhere.

About 287,000 deer were killed during archery and firearm seasons in 2024, an uptick from 2023.

Give deer the vote.