While we do not usually discuss race issues as they go up in flames, I'll try to be circumspect.
I did not intend for my post to be racist, but I was trying to make a point about race and firearm ownership and how it has changed over the years. Much of this comes from my experience with gun ownership and hunting, something that was a major factor with gun ownership in the past. I am not criticizing or trying to stereo-type, just explaining my observations.
Growing up as a kid in a rural area of Wisconsin, hunting was the norm. Everyone I knew did it. Come deer season, the area that was pretty much quiet and desolate, became a mass of people. All of those people had guns. The area I grew up in had a good local population of Native Americans. Grew up next door to them, went to school with them and hunted with them. Hunting was a tradition for them that went deeper than the longtime tradition in my family. Hunting with them taught me a respect for game and habitat that was never instilled on me from my family or my white friends. Still, even on heavily hunted public land during the peak of season, they were the only minority I ever saw. Even tho the large tracts of public land I hunted were heavily used by folks from the larger metropolitan areas of the state like, Madison, Milwaukee and Kenosha, never saw an African-American or Asian-American. Even decades later, when an African American deer hunter was now not unusual, seeing anyone with Asian descent was almost unknown. This all changed when the Hmong "boat people" came to the area. Suddenly public land was inundated with Hmong. Even now, it's common to see them during any hunting season on any piece of public land.
My point is, most of this is based on tradition. The Hmong brought with them a deep tradition of hunting and living off the land, something most earlier immigrants from that side of the world did not have. Here in Wisconsin, the majority of African-Americans lived in cities and did not have a instilled hunting tradition. Again, native-Americans had a very deep hunting tradition instilled in them. This was evident for many years in the amount of gun ownership by different ethnic backgrounds, at least around here. Now many will cry that the 2nd has nuttin' to do with hunting and hunting has nuttin' to do with gun ownership. But that is now. That is the change. Back when the 2nd was written, what was the primary reason the majority of folks in the new nation had guns for? In the last half a century, the motivation for new types/models of firearms has changed along with the faces of gun owners. Used to be, major changes in gun design was based on two things, either for hunting or for military usage. Wasn't until the last half a century that the majority of new gun models and designs are focused on the civilian market and focused on SD/HD and shooting sports outside of hunting. Used to be, everyone that shot trap shot it with their hunting shotguns. Nowadays, that gets you laughed off the range. Hi-capacity is a fairly recent development in the civilian market as is micro-sized carry guns.
The change I see is good and good for our sport. Being involved in one type of shooting sport leads to participation in others. The idea of woman as hunters and as defenders of the family is a good one. The idea that responsible gun ownership is not defined by race, color or sexual gender is a positive change.
