Gold Verses Guns

Gold Verses Guns

If our Country, by the half way mark of the 20th Century, would give up owning and trading in gold after lovingly fondling it's sheen since the beginning of recorded time; isn't it conceivable, that Americans could do something similar at this time and give up owning assault weapons ?

In the 1930's, during my adolescence, Gran'Pa Downie my father's father often argued with Dad about the advocacy of owning gold coins. Both Dad and Gran'Pa immigrated to America from Scotland during the first quarter of the 20th Century. They gathered all the funds they had in the World to exit Scotland and come to "the land of milk and honey" to find fortune through challenging work and frugal living. Depression was already at work in the British Isles long before it began debilitating the wheels of industry here. They mentally and especially physically chose The United States Of America to immigrate to, to give their allegiance to, to pledge this nation as their own. Surely they dreamed of the highlands of ancestry, of the ballads of Robert Burns and others, of tartans and stories of the clans. They both never were able to get over rolling their RR's and took with them to their grave this vestige of the Old Country.

Even though Dad and Gran'Pa both were true blooded Scotsmen, one would think in a true Scottish way, they would have squirreled gold coins into hiding, but not to be. The Great Depression was a universal equalizer, everyone was broke, just securing the very basic needs for the the family was a gigantic task. Dad brought his young family to Pottstown in 1935 where he gained work at Bethlehem Steel as a draftsman. Years later he brought his mother and father to Pottstown and helped them along with their neighbors to completely hand build a house they occupied until their deaths.

Some of the most stimulating discussions occurred when Dad and his father talked (or maybe I should call it argued) over the present day's goings on. The issue of gold which was federally settled years earlier was one item cursory discussed still. Guns, during this time, were a non issue since the Second World War had just come to an end and the returning soldiers were sick and tired of guns, ammunition, and militarism. I'm sure, if the present state of gun mayhem had occurred during my elder's time, no stone would be left unturned during their discussions about gun use carnage. All practical, as well as, philosophical avenues of debate would flow from these two men who thoroughly analyzed and emphatically
pressed their points of emphasis.

This present gun debacle would have gained their unified displeasure. They each knew right from wrong though came at their conclusions from different generations, sort of like me and my grandchildren. Sadly they lost their way from underage and lack of life experience. These same deficiencies seem to happen in every generation, even yours.

Ronald C. Downie