GUNS and AMMO
The Anunciation Catholic Church shooting is simply more of the recent same… a cultural-political, tension producing, nightmare with bunches of regulations attempting to control the marketing and sales of more legal and illegal guns than we have folks in the country. On August 28, 2025, Mayor Jacob Frey, Minneapolis, Minnesota, offered, “Prayers, thoughts, they are certainly welcomed, but they are not enough…There needs to be change so that we don’t have another Mayor, in another month-and-a half, talking about a tragedy that happened in their city.”
As a small-town, Sherwood, Ohio, churchgoing kid; a father of three kids, grandfather, and great grandfather; an Arvada, Colorado, resident at the time of the Columbine massacre; a United States Army veteran; and a Vietnam War, two-year, combat veteran, the strategic battle to change the United States culture will be a long, painful, uphill climb. Opinion: this challenge, opportunity, and change needs to start with parents.
The author’s dad ran a hardware store in Sherwood, Ohio, population of 500 folks; and every day I am grateful for the opportunity to work eight years in this family-owned store that displayed 50 + weapons and ammunition in the right front of the store. My Saturday job was to clean these weapons…Remington, Savage, Winchester, and Stevens…rifles, pistols, and shotguns…and ensure the shelves were replenished with ammunition that looked neat, and the customer’s ammunition of choice was easy to find. In addition, I was taught by Dad to respect weapons and ammunition, how to carry them, how to shoot them, and how to properly behave with weapons that were loaded.
My dad taught the author to use weapons on our weekly trip to the local dump to dispose of our home and store trash. At the dump we would wander off to the right, away from folks, and plunk cans and bottles in the dump with Dad’s weapons. On grandpa and grandma’s farm I shot birds off the two barn’s roofs with 22 caliber shot shells; and occasionally would go squirrel hunting in a nearby hickory nut forest. While a cadet at the United States Military Academy the weapons training was immaculate; and while proudly serving in the United States Army, arms and ammo training was well-planned and executed by Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers; and during combat, weapons and ammo were used for the intended purpose: to strategically and tactically close with and destroy declared enemies of the United States.
During a life of exposure to weapons and ammunition, I do not recall a time when the thought of killing a fellow American ever entered my mind. What has changed in our culture today? A sense of fear has been created and the first conscious and subconscious thoughts about safety and security are to bear arms to protect and defend, and unfortunately, thoughts have evolved to the offensive to kill fellow Americans for an assortment of reasons… hate, revenge, ego, bullying, mental shortcomings, etc. And most recently, the President of the United States has deployed the National Guard to stir cultural fear against unfavorable behavior by Americans. Greg Sargent, The Daily Blast from The New Republic (8-28-25), offers, “Trump wants to provoke a violent confrontation to create a pretext for an even more draconian crackdown… more violence and wants more tension and hate between Americans.” In my opinion, stimulating fear to counter unfavorable cultural behavior or beliefs of Americans is unsatisfactory. For a combat veteran, it simply feels like deploying well-trained, American combat soldiers against Americans is simply wrong! Americans are not the enemy against Americans; and stimulating fear is not the answer.
As mentioned, changing the culture will be an uphill battle that needs to begin with parents helping children learn about and respect weapons and ammunition, and most importantly, learn about and respect how weapons and ammunition are to be used in our culture…we may have different opinions than fellow Americans, and these opinions need to be tactfully shared and discussed; however, our fellow Americans are not our enemies and weapons and ammunition are not to be used on them. Exceptions can be made for personal safety and security when damage to property and life are threatened. Cultural change is definitely necessary!
