No of course guns aren't toys and you can't treat them as such. They are tools, which can be extremely dangerous, or even deadly. One must always exercise extreme caution.
However, there was like a six week waiting list for a skunk trap from animal control, and that damn skunk was hanging around my yard, under my house, driving my dog insane. spraying under my house, making everything I own smell like skunk, even my clothes. I couldn't leave the house or go to work without hearing people ask, "What smells like skunk?"
If you've never lived in Oklahoma, then you simply don't know what it is like there, and are in no position to chastise me for doing what anybody would have done in my position in the time and place where I lived. Anybody in my neighborhood would have shot a nuisance skunk in their yard if it had been terrorizing them long enough.
I didn't go out there firing my shotgun all willy nilly. I carefully raised the kitchen window, which is above the back yard, and as I said, the lot across from me was vacant. I checked in front of the skunk, I checked behind the skunk, and when I was sure I had a safe, clear shot, I fired. One shot was all it took, because I made sure one shot was all I would need.
That's Oklahoma. Many if not most Oklahomans would have done the exact same thing. People will behave differently in different states and in different neighborhoods in the same state, but I assure you that in my neighborhood in my part of Oklahoma, I did exactly what any Oklahoman in that position would have done.
Gun laws are set by states, so each state has different gun laws, and therefore each state has a different attitude about guns. Gun laws in Oklahoma are pretty lax, therefore people are pretty laid back about things like shooting a nuisance skunk in your own back yard. It's just the way it is there. There are a lot of other states with much more rigid gun control laws if the attitude about firearms in OKlahoma makes you uncomfortable, and anybody is free to live in any of those states if they so choose. Nobody has to live in Oklahoma if they don't like it.
|