Everyone has a gun story, even if it’s “I never touched a gun in my life.”
On the Nature of the Thing
There is much debate about the essential nature of guns. Here’s my take. In itself a gun is neither good nor evil, but its possession carries a “moral weight” commensurate to its lethal purpose. A gun kills. A gun is not equivalent to a screwdriver or a tape measure. If you’re not willing to heft this moral weight, don’t buy a gun.
Greetings Neighbor
Greetings Neighbor
My brother-in-law lives in a comfortably prosperous neighborhood.
A few weeks ago he rang a doorbell in search of the owner of a lost dog. The homeowner greeted him with a handgun, presumably loaded. “You never know who to expect this time of night,” the homeowner said. My brother-in-law politely agreed before he got the hell out of there.
You don’t make new friends with a gun in your hand. A gun fundamentally alters the relationship between neighbors. Next time my brother-in-law finds a little lost dog, he probably won’t go ringing doorbells.
The Truth
Truth is I don’t know.
I don’t know whether—as the National Rifle Association (NRA) asserts—the answer is more guns in the hands of citizens. I don’t know whether it’s a ban on certain types of weapons. I don’t know whether it’s a ban on certain types of ammunition or large-capacity magazines. I don’t know whether it’s universal background checks, censorship of ultra-violent video games, enforcement of gun laws already on the books, or better care for the mentally ill.
What I do know is that the status quo is unacceptable: too many people die at the hands of deranged young men with high-powered weapons, too many nominally legal gun purchases find their way into the hands of criminals, and too many lives end violently because a gun is readily available.
It’s not that I don’t have an opinion. My gut is universal background checks, a limit on the size of magazines, and a limit on the number of weapons purchased at one time make perfect sense, and do not meaningfully impinge on anyone’s 2nd Amendment rights.
Research = Politics
One problem is we don’t have sufficient hard data on gun ownership and gun violence to develop effective public policy. The act of conducting research on guns is itself seen as a political act. According to a December 21, 2012 article in the Wall Street Journal, public and private funding for gun research has largely dried up. This didn't just happen. Since 1996 pro-gun Congressman have added language to appropriation bills that effectively restricts any agency of the federal government from conducting research that might be construed as promoting gun control.
I Shot a Gun and I Liked It
Almost everyone who has ever commented on the gun issue feels a need to demonstrate his or her bona fides.
At age 12 I went to a summer camp where one of the activities was trap shooting. The first real gun I fired was a pump-action 20-gauge shotgun. I “killed” a clay pigeon. It was fun.
Later, I was gunnery officer on the USS Charleston (LKA-113). The ship carried an assortment of small arms, all of which I routinely fired: M-14 automatic rifle, M-79 grenade launcher, M-60 light machine gun, and .45-caliber automatic pistol. We also carried .50-caliber heavy machine guns that could be mounted around the ship.
There’s an undeniable adrenaline kick when you fire a high-powered weapon; in my case it soon passed and usually left me with a headache.
Fathers, Sons & Guns
In Pennsylvania, where I live, fathers usually introduce guns to their sons, and sometimes daughters, through deer hunting. My father did not hunt, so not surprisingly neither do I.
This isn’t to say he was unfamiliar with guns. He joined the Marine Corps as a 17-year old near the end of WW II. His older brother was already serving in the 15th Armored Division in Europe. He qualified as an expert marksman and carried a Browning Automatic Rifle, a light machine gun. Fortunately the war ended before he had opportunity to use it.
My father kept a small caliber revolver of indeterminate make in his dresser drawer. He dutifully instructed me never to play with it. Still, by age 9 or 10, I would take it out of his dresser drawer and pull the trigger at make-believe bad guys. Fortunately by this time the ammunition had disappeared. I remember well the weapon’s heft and the stiff trigger pull, so different from the toy guns my friends and I played with.
Years later the revolver passed to me after his death, but no ammunition came with it. I had no use for the gun. It resides in some landfill today.
The only gun I ever considered my own was a Daisy air BB gun that I received for my 8th birthday (essentially it was the same as the “Red Ryder” gun that Ralphie so desperately wished for in The Christmas Story). For many years I shot it at paper targets, tin cans, plastic soldiers, and what-not in my back yard. My father forbade me to shoot at small animals, so I never did.
Why did I obey my father when it came to animals, and not when it came to the revolver in the dresser drawer? I have no idea.
Notwithstanding the many years my dad kept a revolver in his dresser, I sensed that its presence made him uncomfortable. He never thought that gun ownership was a rite of passage. He never discussed the 2nd Amendment as a right under attack. He never suggested that you should own a gun to prepare for some apocalyptic future, whether a societal breakdown or Big Brother government.
By the way, when did this notion of going to war with the U.S. government become part of the conservative mainstream? I never read it in the pages of William Buckley’s National Review, to which I subscribed for many years. Yet, today, it is bedrock Tea Party doctrine.
But ideas have consequences...
But ideas have consequences...
In 2009 three Pittsburgh police officers were killed and two wounded responding to a domestic disturbance. The shooter was a 22-year old man, who, according to friends, purchased his firearms, including an AK-47, "because he felt the quality of (his) life was being diminished," and feared newly elected President Obama would take away his right to own weapons.
At one time I would have called this guy a wacko, but I have heard much the same thing from people I now call friends.
No Gun Mulligans
Last December a father’s 9 mm Beretta accidentally discharged in the parking lot of a western Pennsylvania gun shop killing his 7-year old son. This guy is a fucking idiot too.
Gun Sex
Another shipmate of mine, not the one who blew a hole in his hand, was robbed in Hampton, VA, while he and his fiancé slept in their bedroom. They heard but never saw the intruder. The next day he purchased a hand gun. I assume the gun provided some peace of mind. Still, I wonder, was he ever robbed again? Did he keep the gun at his bedside after he married and had children?
Subsequently Cronin purchased a .38 caliber handgun. But then, he bought another gun, and another, and another, until he owned six; and today he’s planning his next purchase. So what to make of this? Do six guns provide six times the personal safety? Or, as seems more likely, guns are just his adult toys, and personal safety a mere ruse to explain a creepy fascination with guns.
Somebody that I Used to Know
In middle school I car-pooled with a boy who lived nearby. His mother drove a large Mercedes sedan. We were friends but didn’t hang out together. I think he was a rung or two higher up the social ladder. Several years later, after I had moved away, I learned he had killed himself with his dad’s pistol. And so it goes.
About a year ago a childhood friend disclosed in a profoundly sad public email that he had Huntington’s Disease. Briefly, it is caused by an insidious genetic defect that often does not manifests itself until mid-life. Essentially your brain wastes away. The progression of the disease varies; cognition, mood/behavior, and physical movement all eventually deteriorate.
His end story was relayed to me by mutual friends—I cannot independently confirm it. When one of his adult children came to check on him, he brandished a shotgun at the door. A 911 call followed and a SWAT team arrived on the scene. Negotiations ensued, and ended abruptly when he turned the shotgun on himself. And so it goes.
About 20% of Huntington patients attempt suicide; 7% succeed. Huntington patients should not possess guns.
So Little Time, So Many Gun Deaths
At this point the many mass gun killings blur together. Of course, the memory of Sandy Hook Elementary is still fresh, as is the Aurora movie theater shooting. Columbine stands out, because of the number of fatalities and the creepy partnership between the two socio-pathic teenage shooters. Then there’s the Nickel Mines School in Lancaster, PA, the Gabby Giffords shooting in Tuscon, AZ, et cetera, et cetera.
The online magazine Slate and Twitter feed @Gundeaths have started a crowdsourced tally of U.S. gun deaths since the Sandy Hook massacre on December 14th. At this writing, 69 days later, the tally stands at 1,999 or about 29 gun deaths per day. I'll let the reader decides what this means.
The Strange, Sad Tale of the 2nd Amendment’s Poster Child
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| Meleanie Hain at her daughter's soccer practice |
Meleanie was all about her right to carry a gun, regardless of any identifiable threat. After the soccer game incident, she complained “the way people look at me sometimes when I am out running errands, I feel as if I am wearing a scarlet letter, and really it’s a Glock 26.”
I suppose that was a witticism. Either she couldn’t see, or didn’t care, that a gun strapped on her hip changed her relationship with the community. As my brother-in-law will attest, you don’t make friends with a loaded gun at your side.
I suppose that was a witticism. Either she couldn’t see, or didn’t care, that a gun strapped on her hip changed her relationship with the community. As my brother-in-law will attest, you don’t make friends with a loaded gun at your side.
A year later her husband murdered her in their home with his 9mm handgun. Then he took his own life. Her loaded Glock 26 was a few feet away in a backpack hanging on the door. Her three children were unharmed.
The Elusive Truth
When I look back, guns have played a minor part of my life. I am grateful that I never felt compelled to own a gun for personal protection. For me, not needing a gun is a hallmark of civilized society.
As I reported earlier in this post, two people I once called friends used guns to kill themselves. I wonder, is this about normal for someone who has lived 58 years? It seems a lot.
Within my circle of friends, I have never had anyone recount how a gun thwarted a crime or protected their family from harm. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but apparently it doesn't happen often. My gut is that a gun is much more likely to be involved in an accidental shooting, a suicide, or a domestic homicide than it is to protect anyone.
The more I listen to people comment on the gun issue, the more convinced I become that we are talking past each other. People, like me, see guns as a personal safety issue that should be judged on a cost-benefit basis (people killed versus protection afforded); we have little in common with people who see guns as somehow fundamental to liberty and their sense of what it means to be an American.
The Elusive Truth
When I look back, guns have played a minor part of my life. I am grateful that I never felt compelled to own a gun for personal protection. For me, not needing a gun is a hallmark of civilized society.
As I reported earlier in this post, two people I once called friends used guns to kill themselves. I wonder, is this about normal for someone who has lived 58 years? It seems a lot.
Within my circle of friends, I have never had anyone recount how a gun thwarted a crime or protected their family from harm. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but apparently it doesn't happen often. My gut is that a gun is much more likely to be involved in an accidental shooting, a suicide, or a domestic homicide than it is to protect anyone.
The more I listen to people comment on the gun issue, the more convinced I become that we are talking past each other. People, like me, see guns as a personal safety issue that should be judged on a cost-benefit basis (people killed versus protection afforded); we have little in common with people who see guns as somehow fundamental to liberty and their sense of what it means to be an American.
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