Gun Mettle

Phoebe Ann Mosey alias Annie Oakley alias Hillary Rodham Clinton who channels with Eleanor Roosevelt while dodging sniper fire in Bosnia. I can hardly wait until she's President!

I can hear her at the Press Club dinner after downing a few boiler makers - shots and beer - and regaling the audience with recollections of her time as one of "us".

"You know, my dad took me out behind the cottage that my grandfather built on a little lake called Lake Winola outside of Scranton and taught be how to shoot when I was a little girl. You know, some people now continue to teach their children and their grandchildren. It's part of culture. It's part of a way of life. People enjoy hunting and shooting because it's an important part of who they are. Not because they are bitter. As I told you, my dad taught me how to shoot behind our cottage. I have gone hunting. I am not a hunter. But I have gone hunting."

Yep. Reminds me of when I was a kid. We were at an office party at a friend of my Dad's who was hosting it as his country home.

The boys were off in a field popping tin cans with a .22. I wanted to try. They let me and after several attempts I actually hit one.

That was the sum total of it. Never went hunting. I couldn't ever shoot anything. It's not in my genes!

But she's right. Guns are a part of some ways of life. Folks in Montana let that be known. Some of their super delegates decided to switch to Hillary from Obama. They love their guns. So do the folks here in Idaho. Hunting is big sport out here.

So are stand offs with the Feds. Like Ruby Ridge and the Branch Dividians in Waco, Texas. There were the Freemen in Montana too. Some 21 people holed up on a 960 acre sheep ranch and declared it sovereign territory. They held off the Feds for nearly three months, the longest federal siege in modern history.

Why? They were, ahem, unhappy with government and chose to reject it by fencing themselves off and protecting their self- proclaimed territory with guns. The Branch Dividians, of course, were a "religion" - again, protecting themselves with guns.

Now tell me, could they have been bitter?

bitter |ˈbitər|
adjective
2 (of people or their feelings or behavior) angry, hurt, or resentful because of one's bad experiences or a sense of unjust treatment : I don't feel jealous or bitter.
3 harsh or unpleasant, in particular
• (often used for emphasis) painful or unpleasant to accept or contemplate : today's decision has come as a bitter blow.
• (of a conflict, argument, or opponent) full of anger and acrimony : a bitter, five-year legal battle.

Hmmm?