Letter from Gene Lorig
Guns and Politics – September 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
He’d like to see what pulses through their veins
Ed and Martha,
Persistence is thy name. Here’s $40 to keep you off my back for a couple years.
Since your first card, in May, I have been trying to think of something original to say, but life is too pleasantly dull here to so do, if you are able to forget the outside world. And the outside world is so absurd it dumbfounds. I have even found myself agreeing with Ken Hamblin — on JFK Jr. And maybe somewhat on guns.
I have carried a gun for a good part of my life — as a kid in the mountains to protect myself from wild tin cans; in the military; as District Attorney, and for a few years in Eagle County, the most over-policed and under-protected place I have known, as protection from the various official Gestapos. But now I have even stopped carrying a pistol in the car; decided it was making me too brave. Had a fifty-foot pistol range in my basement in Eagle, but quit using it when we adopted our border collie — she hates loud noise and my wife isn’t too fond of gunfire either. Sold and gave away most of my guns when we moved here, and haven’t missed them. Never mind what I have left.
If registration ever becomes law, I guess I will just have to break it. But I have no use for assault weapons — or the people who use them. I do suppose that ownership of an AK-47 might add length to one’s formal dances, but at 72 it would take more than that. A good firearm is a work of art, and marksmanship is an underrated skill. (My belief is that the army outfits the grunts with automatic weapons since that is easier than teaching them to shoot.)
A war on guns would be equivalent to our war on drugs — creating an underground economy and little else. I could rave on about the subject, but I will end it with a quote from Gertrude Stein: “There ain’t no answers; there never was no answer; there never will be no answer. That’s the answer.”
They tell me we have an election coming up next year. what is the word for it other than “tragicomedy”? I would like to cut the throats of Orrin Hatch and Gary Bauer. Nothing personal, you understand, but I firmly believe they are aliens. And whatever pulses through their veins, it could not be blood, but I would like to see what it is.
I may vote for Bob Smith. He has a redeeming virtue. He makes Wayne Allard look intelligent. Our idiot leaders are planning and projecting thirty years down the road, and our phony economy can collapse tomorrow.
Enough of this. If you happen to print any of it — and you are hard up to fill space if you do — my name is Gene. My mother hung Eugene on me, but I have almost forgiven her, as it was no doubt due to postpartum depression.
Regards, Gene Lorig, Paonia
