A response to an essay on "Shooting Dad"

My computer is old. I can't manage to just post a comment on someones page, so I have to just do it on mine. Powerbook G4, who are you?

I read Theresa's essay on Shooting Dad and found it to be a pretty upset one. I can see where the disturbed outlook comes from, because it's not very enjoyable to imagine a father who would allow, let alone encourage their child to shoot a gun at the age of six. However, I do hold a soft spot for people who know what they know, and it becomes their purpose and what drives them. It may not be pushing the world in a brighter place in a very clear or obvious way, but the fact that he had been a gunsmith leads me to believe that his knowledge of guns was extensive, something I could never understand being someone much more like Vowell than her father. I don't think he meant harm by it. It's surely ignorant and dangerous to say the least, but it was also a somewhat loving gesture coming from a man whose strongest vein of knowledge was in firearms. I also appreciated the fact that he never forced his daughters into anything, and was very adamant about allowing them to make choices for themselves. There is something to be said about this, since many parents would consider this concept more dangerous than guns.