SEXES DIFFER ON THE ISSUE OF GUNS
Mike Seate
OK, so maybe poking fun at the National Rifle Association for holding its 2004 convention in our city after a year where we reached record numbers of gun murders was too easy -- like duck-hunting with an AK-47.
So it wasn't a shock to receive angry letters from members. But what did rattle the old mental re-loader was how gender-specific the whole gun control argument has become.
Letters supporting a better-armed society came exclusively from men, while mail ridiculing the powerful gun lobby came almost exclusively from women.
It was the mothers, the wives, the daughters and the girlfriends who promised to organize protest rallies outside the new David L. Lawrence Convention Center when the NRA rolls into town April 14. They also seemed less seduced by our country's time-honored myths that attempt to link guns with heroism -- which is less than I can say for the guys.
Nearly every man I heard from claimed to own guns to "protect my family" or to ward off some ambiguous evil. But let's be honest: Do any of us know of anyone who wasn't, say, a cast member of "Bonanza" or an Iraqi who recently defended their homestead with a firearm?
Several women were outraged, not by the myth-making of guns but by their impracticality. They complained of husbands who spend as much as $1,200 for assault rifles that spend years in closets -- money, wives say, that could have been used for home repairs or bills.
"The NRA is like the Boy Scouts for grown men who like to romanticize themselves as John Wayne fighting off the enemy in some movie. It's just a scam that scares men into spending money they don't have on expensive guns," wrote Yvette Castigliano, of Ambridge, Beaver County.
