Why wing nuts, guns and bananas don't mix

I just finished reading Janet Callen’s guest opinion (Friday, April 1). At first I thought it would turn out to be another April Fool’s spoof. When I was finished reading, I wondered why The Press would bother to print her opinions. We all have opinions. Everybody has opinions. She didn’t offer any special knowledge, experiences, training, or accomplishments that might have made her opinions worthy of your newspaper space or my time to read her comments.

All the items that she complained about are available in California or just across the border in Washington state. She need not remain here and suffer from the actions and inactions of what she must consider the most inept, uncaring and incompetent state legislature in these 50 states. She is free to move right on over to any state of her choosing. When she denigrates our legislature, she is to a certain degree suggesting that her neighbors, who elected the legislature, occupy a place of similar low-standing in her judgment.

Her comment about the “wing nut with a gun in his pants…shooting her over a dispute over a banana…” is way out of line. I have lived here since 1992 and I cannot recall a single case of a wing nut shooting a woman over a banana in any store, anywhere. Janet probably didn’t realize she was displaying her prejudices. She indicates that the “wing nut” would be a male. What prompts that belief?

There are well over 130,000 concealed weapons permits in Idaho. Policemen just assume everyone is armed. Pastors in churches assume several members of the congregation are armed. I know many men and women who carry concealed routinely. As a general rule, an armed citizen most often turns out to be a very responsible individual with a deep awareness of the higher degree of responsible behavior that carrying a weapon requires.

It is sad to know that one of the most important documents ever written, the American Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the amendments to the Constitution are so little understood. The Bill of Rights are rights that accrue to the individual and not the government. It is not the right of the government to allow us the rights in the Bill of Rights. More and more states, and the Supreme Court have begun to understand the right to carry both concealed and openly is not a right they give us; Article II of the Bill of Rights does that.

If Janet doesn’t like that, let her start a movement to amend the Constitution. I believe it has been amended 27 times. The reason gun grabbers and gun haters don’t go that route is they are scared that the amendment would be defeated soundly.

Responsible citizens of Idaho who choose to exercise their rights under the Constitution do not appreciate being characterized as “wing nuts” who might gun down a fellow citizen over a banana. The Coeur d’Alene Press does a service by allowing citizens to vent their opinions regardless of the soundness of the thoughts involved.

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Robert Hunt is a Post Falls resident.