Dark Horses

Since John Hinckley Jr.’s attempt on President Reagan’s life the country has been deluged by yet another wave of anti-gun hysteria. Although Reagan himself has deplored the rhetorical and political misuses to which Hinckley’s little .22 pistol has been put, his protests have been unavailing. So far from accepting the President’s refusal to weaken his opposition to gun control as a matter of devotion to principle, the anti-gun lobbyists have chosen to present it as an example of bullheaded stupidity that will not learn from experience, even personal experience. As far as I know, President Reagan is not a hunter. Myself, I’m grateful that if he had to be shot at, the incident didn’t occur in the fall, on Opening Day of deer season.

James B. Whisker’s The Right to Hunt (North River Press/Caroline House, $8.95) is absolutely the best thing I have read on the subject. Whisker, who is a professor of political science at West Virginia University, has written a learned, erudite, and extremely polished little book that is philosophically as well as politically trenchant. It is not a tract; it can be appreciated by sedentary philosophers who have never shot a bolt or reloaded a shell. Intellectually it is probably above the heads of half the gun-control zealots.

CW

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Chilton Williamson Jr.

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Since John Hinckley Jr.’s attempt on President Reagan’s life the country has been deluged by yet another wave of anti-gun hysteria. Although Reagan himself has deplored the rhetorical and political misuses to which Hinckley’s little .22 pistol has been put, his protests have been unavailing. So far from accepting the President’s refusal to weaken his opposition to gun control as a matter of devotion to principle, the anti-gun lobbyists have chosen to present it as an example of bullheaded stupidity that will not learn from experience, even personal experience. As far as I know, President Reagan is not a hunter. Myself, I’m grateful that if he had to be shot at, the incident didn’t occur in the fall, on Opening Day of deer season.

James B. Whisker’s The Right to Hunt (North River Press/Caroline House, $8.95) is absolutely the best thing I have read on the subject. Whisker, who is a professor of political science at West Virginia University, has written a learned, erudite, and extremely polished little book that is philosophically as well as politically trenchant. It is not a tract; it can be appreciated by sedentary philosophers who have never shot a bolt or reloaded a shell. Intellectually it is probably above the heads of half the gun-control zealots.