Dear editor

Step 1: The “Annie Get Your Gun” author disgorges nine mind-numbing paragraphs of gun-worship paean.

Step 2: He includes a fair and balanced gun-control tease.

Step 3: He confesses the sin of taking a liberal arts degree at college (in Political Science, of all things, so he is careful to point out that he is no scientist).

Step 4: He reassures any reader who enjoyed Step 1 (but who now may suspect the author guilty of being an effete liberal intellectual because of his Step 2 and Step 3 transgressions) that neither a misunderstood reference to “science” nor his suspicious college education will be allowed to get in the way of his good old-fashioned “common sense.”

Step 5: He underscores the intent of Step 4 with a full-automatic tirade against all that he would blame for a perceived declining American civilization.

 Whether consciously or otherwise, the author of the “Annie Get Your Gun” opinion piece insinuates a nostalgically intoxicating reactionary dream... if only a well-armed faction of like-minded true believers would take control and apply some common sense to eliminate trouble-making “activists” (presumably these are minorities and perceived social and political deviants of all stripes), non-Christians, non-whites, unfavorable Supreme Court decisions, and the inconvenient parts of the Constitution (including some of its ill-thought-out amendments).  But exactly where does such a dream begin and, perhaps more importantly, where does it end? Analogous reactionary dreams have played out in other societies and at other times... it never ends well.

 Annie, as much as you may be intoxicated by your dream, perhaps you should leave your gun at home.

Michael Cope

Rockdale County