David Milton McGowan

I've just heard and read where people are saying that this horrific action in Orlando, Florida is all the fault of firearms laws. I can't agree and suspect that people are thinking with their hearts instead of their minds to even have such statements come out of their mouths. Such statements defy logic. It was a horrific act perhaps fueled by religious fundamentalism, poor education or outright ignorance but it was committed by, and therefore the fault of a person. However for those wishing the proper firearms information as collected by EVERY group that does collect ALL the information, here are the statistics. Firearm statistics from 2012 In the US Guns are used 80 times more often to protect a life than to take one. This is comparing self defence against suicide, homicide and accident combined. There are approximately 270 million privately owned firearms in the USA Each year in the USA a gun is used about 200 thousand times by a woman to avoid sexual abuse. ...

Here is an excerpt from “Homesteader”, my third published novel and the second with SBPRA. This is the piece very near the first where Hank and Harry meet the man who will prove a problem for them, Portis Martin. It is also one of the reasons that Hank decides to apply for land under the Homestead Act … to prove a thorn in Martin’s side. I'm not sure where these pictures were taken but this is the type of country they would have been riding through on their approach to Calgary, first on the train and then mounted and trailing down the eastern slope. Homesteader By D. M. McGowan Copyright © 2000 It was close to noon before we met the first discouraging thing although it took us several minutes to realize it. It was a man of perhaps two hundred and fifty pounds riding a sixteen hundred pound horse. He came out of the bush on the north side of the draw that ran down hill off to our left, followed by two average size men on two average size horses. We...