Anthony Bourdain CNN?

I happened to have recorded something on CNN by accident wondering what it was. But, I was pleasantly surprised to see the Chef and world traveler Anthony Bourdain showing people who are comfortable with guns showing him how to shoot different weapons. People on the East Coast might be horrified by this, but this is pretty normal wherever there aren't a lot of people from about the Mississipi River to the West and up into Alaska. The culture is completely different in regard to guns.

First of all, West of the Mississippi River there are a whole lot of wide open spaces and people who like a whole lot of wide open spaces live there. And when you are remote you might actually need a gun to protect yourself from animals, Critters or people. Because many many places it would take a Sheriff or  policeman 1/2 hour to 3 hours just to get to you. So, if you can't take care of yourself wherever you are, you really shouldn't be there now should you? This includes protecting yourself from any people or animals that aren't civilized. And people in the bigger cities in the East might freak out about this too.

However, since people started colonizing the west in the 1800 and early 1900s this is how people thought then and to some degree many people still think this way. Like one man said on this show, "I had a rifle before I had a baseball bat." In my own case my grandmother gave me my first rifle that had been my Dad's before me in 1956 when I was 8 years old. She said, "You're a little old for this because we gave your Dad a gun at 6 and your Uncle Tommy a gun when he was 4 but here it is anyway." This was my grandmother helping me become a responsible young man at age 8. And I was very grateful and kept this rifle and bullets always in my bedroom at home so I could protect my family and myself ever after this.

And there was only one time when I was about 9 or 10 years old when someone put a throwing knife to my throat (a STranger) when I considered shooting them after they held the knife at my neck until the blood trickled down my neck. (Luckily, they didn't get an artery or something). So, this was the only time I seriously considered shooting someone with my Remington .22 17 shot pump rifle. But, a friend talked me out of this because he said, "Let someone else kill those boys! They won't make it to 20 likely anyway acting like that." I realized my friend was right. Why should I go to jail for killing people when I could let someone else do it for me?

This is how boys thought during the 1950s if they were older than 6 years old.

Guns weren't given to kids that weren't responsible because that would be crazy now wouldn't it? But, the world was different in many ways in the 1950s than it is now.

I have been equally scared by people with knives and guns about the same amount. However, no one has ever threatened to shoot me. However, people twice told me they were going to cut my head off and put a knife to my throat and slightly cut me over a 1/2 hour period. I thought this was the craziest most insane thing that ever happened to me because both these incidents happened before I was 12.
And one of these people committed suicide before they were 20 I found out later.

So, I'm not scared of guns because people didn't usually threaten people with guns in the 1950s. If you did that no one would respect you because the culture was different then. If you threatened someone with a gun you would be thought of as uncivilized and then you might wind up buried secretly in someone's back yard. It was this way throughout the South and all the way to California and Alaska then. You just didn't threaten people with a gun or someone really would shoot you or make you disappear then with or without the police. That's how it was in the 1950s.

So, if you didn't have respect or fear then in society you could just disappear one day no matter who you were in the 1950s. So, all people tended to be a lot more polite because people were a little less civilized then just after World WAr II because they had just witnessed 100 million people die in that war and everyone was a little PTSD from it then. So, you needed to be polite and respectful to stay alive then at any age.

The point I'm trying to make is that if you live in the country (or even if you don't) west of the Mississippi River nice and good people often own guns and they go to church and target practice or hunt with their friends.

My grandfather was a hunter in the West especially in the State of Washington. He had 40 hound dogs at one time for hunting. This would have been in the 1920 when my Dad was a boy. My Dad didn't like to hunt or feed dogs by the time I was born in the late 1940s but he still taught be to be a crack shot with any rifle especially a .22 rifle with or without a scope. I was mostly raised in Southern California so we would mostly target practice or shoot at jack rabbits in the desert from about 1956 until I was about 15 and was more interested in surfing and girls and not guns. But, I still can hit just about anything with or without a scope up to about 100 yards with a rifle.

Note: I was never shot by a firearm but I was shot at age 6 with a BB gun that shoots small copper round pellets. This really hurt in my thigh where I was hit and left a black and blue mark about the size of a 50 cent piece from my friend's BB gun. But, that was pretty normal for 6 year olds to have BB guns back then. We were young men and supposed to be able to survive anything weren't we?

But, unfortunately, a lot of young people don't survive until 25 or 30. But, I think it was always like that here on earth.