I read a statement the other day by some highly educated individual who stated “everyone knows a gun in the home makes the home more dangerous than a home which has no gun. The only people who havent learned that yet are uneducated southern people and rednecks.”

Wow! I was really shocked to find that northern people are more educated and gun free. Well goooollly!

Frankly that attitude really makes me mad! There seem to be alot of people who think everything below the Mason Dixon line drives a pickup truck, has an aunt for a mother, a rag for a gas cap, a rebel flag on his window and shoots dem guns on da weekend over beer.

I would like to point out a fact that seems to be missed by these so called educated individuals regardless of the state they come from: There are many highly educated and very respectable southerners.

I drive a pickup (68 Ford, and I also have a sweet looking red and white ’64 Fairlane) live in the country and shoot various weapons in my back yard. I also have a degree and occupation for the last ten years. Being far from the brightest bulb in the box, I would like to mention a few others:

Nathan Bedford Forrest was a southerner, from Tennessee. He was the image of a typical southerner. A farmer, he learned to shoot early in life and if you read the biographies he was caretaker for his family and a fearless young man, not some one to be messed with. He was also rather illiterate, had terrible spelling and recieved only the basest of educations. Little known fact: Forrest was the one who invented the phrase “ok” which means Oll Kerect, or all correct, the way he described proper inventories of goods.

Forrest was one of the most incredible genereals of the Civil war. Enlisting as a private, he worked upward in rank to Brigadier General, through 54 engagements. His reputation for cunning tactics and skill were well deserved. He was also a highly successful businessman.

Though not able to spell, devoid of education, this man became one of the most famous war heros, even today. He accomplished great things.

Southerners are doctors, lawyers, business men, and some of the great films of our time have been filmed by southerners.

Go down a street in redneck souther states and you find Wal Marts, large corporations (some of the biggest transportation companies have their home bases in the south) and industry no different than northern industry.

There are a large bumber of your respected celebrities living about an hour north of my place in the rich section. Tom Cruise either was one, or is now.

As they said in Gettysburg “you can’t judge a race”, which better translates into you can’t sterotype a group of people.

There are a group of long haired, tattoo covered leather wearing southern boys down the road several miles-best mechanics money can buy and honest ones too. Incidentally none of them carry guns.

The idea of southerners being the gun totin rednecks responsible for illegal guns, violence, and the Bad Boy image is not the case. Some of those people do exist down here (and simpilar types exist all over the world. You see them on the news all the time) but the south also has it’s share of very refined people. It also has an anti gun crowd which blames gun owners for crime and violence.

When I see comments by the man from Colorado and the Canadian fellow (we wont put up with things here in Canada that they do down south, particularly Texas) and the message boards which defame half the country (just go down south where the rednecks are and you can get any gun you want! The ten year olds have shotguns and their mamas taught em to shoot!) it makes me mad.

During wartime we all put troops into action, not just the upper class. We all vote, we all pay taxes. It’s just like stereotyping blacks with certain derogatory terms. We have black judges, doctors and let us not forget Dr. King.

Southerners are not just gun packin idiots. They are Americans.