Written by Marianne MansfieldAnd the madness continues: our legislators at work.
It is big news at the Capitol apparently, when the year’s commemorative firearm makes its appearance. Yes, indeed, our legislature has a gun.
And not just any old gun. This is the same model gun, an AR-15 semi-automatic, as that which was used in 2012 to kill 20 children and 6 staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newton, Connecticut. The AR-15’s esteemed pedigree of death doesn’t stop there, however. In 2002 the two men known as the DC snipers used an AR-15 to kill 10 individuals and critically injure 3. This is one mean killing machine.
But to be fair, the gun’s hype says it can be used for target practice, killing small to mid-sized animals and for home defense (emphasis added). Said the Salt Lake Tribune, “Legislators go bigger with the firearm for the 2015 session.”
I live with a life-long hunter, who disputes the claim that the AR-15 is appropriate for target practice and killing animals. “It isn’t a hunting rifle, it’s an assault rifle.” Although I know next to nothing about guns, he does and I trust his assessment.
The legislators quoted for the story mentioned above seemed nearly euphoric over this year’s gun selection. They seem bedazzled by the Cerakote finish, the beehive pattern and engraved state motto “Industry” and the Utah House motto “Vox Populi.” The House motto is Latin, and translates to ‘Voice of the People.’
Let me just say that this is not the Vox of this particular Popula. And before those of you who are gun advocates jump into the fray suggesting that I go back wherever it was I came from if I don’t like the way things are done here, I’d like to explain.
When I moved here nearly 5 years ago, I was completely anti-gun, so much so that I could barely acknowledge in polite conversation that my husband was a hunter. What’s more, I was taken aback by the love affair firearm owners of the western United States have with their guns. Nor could I see how that emotional entanglement translated into an unholy fear that the Feds were about to confiscate all weapons as a first step to Jack-booted suppression of the citizens of the West by the evil likes of President Obama and his cronies.
I’ve become acclimated over the years, though. I don’t like guns any better, and I think their preponderance is dangerous and a heavy-handed obstacle to civil discourse, and I’m positive the President has bigger fish to fry, but I’m learning that some things are just not going to change. I’m learning to live side by side with people who carry guns into restaurants, who call for the arming of our state’s teachers and who feel that gun ownership is a guaranteed right under the second amendment of the Constitution of the United States. I don’t agree with my fellow citizens, but I’m learning to co-exist despite the fundamental differences of belief on the topic.
But our legislature has an assault rifle as the gun of the year? As the kids would say…WHAAT?
It must be that our legislators want to send a message of some sort. Maybe that no one is going to get anything over on Utahans because we’ll shoot ‘em first. Or maybe that we really can’t trust even other Utahans, therefore we need to be armed in case someone comes after us, our family, our property, or our guns, in which case we’ll shoot ‘em first.
Or maybe it’s just that we’ll shoot ‘em first, whoever they are, if we feel like it.
So, I’m becoming enough of a Utahan to say, I’m not shocked to learn our legislature has a commemorative gun. In a strange and disturbing way, it is beginning to make sense to me. I am, however, incredibly upset at the lack of sensitivity displayed by those who make such decisions. To select a rifle that has such a tragic and bloody history in recent culture is witless and crass. The message it sends makes me ashamed of our state.
I guess I’m not that much of a Utahan and I never will be.
Marianne Mansfield has lived in Southern Utah since 2010. She and her husband followed their grandchildren to this area from Michigan. In her former life she was a public school educator. More than half of her career was spent as an elementary principal, which is why her response to most challenges is, “This isn’t my first rodeo.” She grew up in Indiana, and attended Miami of Ohio, Ball State University and Michigan State. She is a loyal MSU Spartan and Detroit Tiger baseball fan. She has been writing fiction and opinion since her retirement in 2004.
