Dear Friends -
Several threads in the community blog lately have touched on the American obsession with firearms. These are some of my thoughts.
I just finished a book called Republican Like Me: Infiltrating Red-State, White-Ass, and Blue-Suit America by Harmon Leon. This guy is more liberal than I am by far, and that takes some doing. Anyway, he states (without citation) a statistic that a firearm in the home is 43 times more likely to injure or kill the homeowner, family member or guest in the home than a dangerous intruder. That sounds a little exaggerated to me, but I bet it's half that, anyway. Dedicated anti-gun people use that sort of statistic to conclude that civilians shouldn't possess firearms.
The whole issue of guns baffles me. Really. My beliefs are inconsistent. I have a lot of concern about the proliferation of guns in society. But I think I should have all I want. OK, that's selfish and inconsistent. But it's how I feel.
I was raised around guns. I first started shooting about age 6 or 7. I owned my first gun (a .22 Remington single shot rifle) at age 10. Over the years, I just kept acquiring guns. That is, until a new love talked me into selling many of them. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Love is fleeting. A good gun lasts a long time. I'm still in the process of replacing them, finding just exactly the guns I want.
I've carried guns, legally and illegally. Years ago, I was involved in a case featuring the "Avengers," a white-power, violent prison-based gang. At that time, it was impossible as a practical matter to get a gun permit in our county. The chief judge was on the bench for 45 years, and in that time issued only one gun permit. So, for a number of weeks, I broke the law by carrying a pistol either on my person, or in the fairing of my motorcycle. (It was a grueling case - late at night, when I was too fried to keep working, I would take long, fast bike rides in the hot night to unwind.) There were a few scattered occasions in the following years that I would carry a gun, but basically simply kept guns at home and the office. Lots of guns. Whenever I was at the farm, I was armed - not for fear of any animals in the woods other than humans - the farm is pretty far out, and there are just some nasty-ass people in this world.
Then came the West Virginia Supreme Court case of State ex rel. City of Princeton v. Buckner, 377 S.E.2d 139 (W. Va. 1988). (Sorry, don't mean to sound snooty-technical, that's just the way that written court opinions are cited, by book and page.) I know a lot about that case, because I was "local counsel" for the National Rifle Association. ("Local counsel" is required when an out-of-state lawyer files a case in West Virginia, so that there is someone with a West Virginia license who signs the documents.) At that time, I had done a good many appeals, so I participated in a minor way in actually preparing the briefs, and I am the one who argued the case before the Court. The Court's decision was that a new state constitutional amendment had pre-empted the existing laws concerning carrying firearms, and bounced the question to the Legislature to design a system that would be constitutional. The system the Legislature established made it reasonably easy to obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon. (After the constitutional amendment, it was legal to carry a gun openly without a permit.) I was handling some other cases involving dangerous people again (including a motorcycle gang known as the Pagans), so I got a permit to carry concealed. I was required to take a gun-handling/safety course, which was absolutely insufficient to teach someone who has not handled guns to do so safely. I continued to carry a gun only when I felt an increased threat, and was comfortable in doing so. No, that's not exactly right - you can no more be "comfortable" with a gun than you can be comfortable with a chain saw. They are just too damn dangerous.
I like guns, and I like shooting. My ideal carry piece is a 1911 pattern .45 automatic. It's called "1911" because that's the year the Army adopted it, so it's a weapon that has been virtually unchanged for about 100 years. There are lots of accessories available on eBay for it. So sue me, I'm a traditionalist.
But keeping a gun is a burden and a trust. Christ, as I write this, there is an episode of "Walker, Texas Ranger" playing on the TV to fill the room with some noise. In the scene just on, two guys shooting fully automatic weapons (submachine guns, in other words) at the Rangers who are out in the open, and missing; and the Rangers firing one shot apiece and killing the bad guys. This is warped, this is one of the reasons that kids and young adults think it's cool and trendy to run around armed. Where was I? Yes, a trust. You have to know your limitations. You have to keep your guns locked up. There are special boxes with shrouded or touch-only combination locks that provide good security and not-unreasonable access. If you don't live and teach gun safety, you have no damn business with a gun, and you are one of the creators of the unfortunate statistics. One of the saddest gun stories I know (that is, saddest without someone getting shot) is from when my grandfather and his brother went squirrel hunting for the last time, with shotguns. They each took an easy shot at a squirrel and missed. Without a word, they went back home, and never went hunting again. They knew their limitations.
I'm not in favor of anyone who has the slightest reservation getting a gun of any sort.
Mizpah.
Straight-shooting,
R
(P.S. - My wife is a much better shot than I am. Go figure.)
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11 comments:
Brother Roger,
I agree with much that you have written here. Nebraska has just passed a concealed carry law. If I cared to, I could apply and leagally carry a firearm. I considered it while it was being debated, and so far I have decided to pass on the permit.
I respectfully disagree with your choice of weapon. I am very partial to my S&W K frame .357 revolver.
Sunflower prefers her Browning 9mm high power, Like your lady, Sunflower is a fine shot.
I just don't get this at all. Are you so afraid of the people in this world that you feel there will come a time when you seriously will need to kill one of them in self defense? I've lived for almost 60 years and the only time I carried a weapon of any kind was in Junior High School when it was "cool" to have a switch blade knife . Other then that I seem to have survived the rigors of life without packing "heat" and I would add I've been in some pretty funky dangerous places in my life . Personally I have no problem with people being armed but haven't found it nessessary in my own life .
On another topic , you mentioned the Pagans . The Pagans were and are ( if they still exist ) an east coast motor cycle gang ( club if you like ) based on Long Island NY . I wasn't aware they had chapters as far off as West Virginia but I guess they did . I don't think the pagans ever attained the size or recognition as a motorcycle gang that the Hells Angels did (the Hells Angels are actually not only a nationwide group but I think they even have branches in other countries ) . From reading junk about these people in the past as far as I remember the Pagans and the Angels were mortal enemies sometimes resorting to gang wars in which some of them were killed or badly injured .
Personally , i find people who have a need as a adults to belong to a "gang " to be highly juvenile but as with evrything I say , thats just my opinion , allan
I live in a place where a car dealership offered a free rifle with a test drive...forgive, but I do think there is something wrong with that and the mentality that encourages it.
(And Roger, you do realize I make you look like a Goldwater conservative :-) )
I've run across Pagans working in the prison system (never met a Hells Angel). I also used to live upstairs from a woman who'd had her entire family wiped out by the Pagans because her brother was dating the ex-girlfriend of a Pagan. They are nasty, and I would go way out of my way not to have anything to do with them.
Around here, a gang called The Warlocks is pretty big. Plus, the hispanic gangs. Most notably MS-13. Another group I would go waaaaaaaaaay out of my way to avoid.
elu,
I like your blog because I usually learn something.
But when a man holds a gun he thinks the size of his penis grows twofold. It doesn't of course, but he thinks it does.
Guns are something men can act macho about. It brings them into The GUY CLUB, much like kids, fashion and shopping draw women into The GIRL CLUB. Trouble is fashion and shopping aren't usually lethal
Actually, Emma, I agree with you that it is very common that a gun = macho-ness. That's why I've referred to them in a comment to a post a week or so ago as "dick extenders." I've also likened them to chain saws - they need handled with attention and respect.
R
Of course, Roger, chain saws cause countless accidents due to careless--which sounds rather familiar...
Yes, Jilly, IT'S YOUR FAULT!!! I read the book because of your recommendation. And I enjoyed it immensely - this guy is warped. Warped, I understand.
Thank you!!
R
Damn, I'm gonna have to start heckling Roger for a new post....
In the past I was a rabid gun-control fan and I still am regarding machine guns and in a couple of other areas, but regarding handguns I have changed my opinion 180'. During the last 4 or 5 years I pursued looking into the conceal and carry handgun issue and in doing so talked in person and on the computer (including shelfies) to a couple of hundred people who conceal and carry or own handguns, the gun nuts, and found not surprisingly that there is a huge number of people that are living in fear of being attacked/raped/etc. What is surprising to me is that there are so many people. Sometimes this fear is real (rare but real) but usually the fear is pretty unfounded. But there is a lot of fear. For example,small town and far out suburban residents are often scared shitless to go into the city including areas that are almost solid white middleclass or better, so they bring their handguns for protection. That so many people live in fear, and IMHO there is no doubt that fear is the driving motivation that essentially the fear thing changed my mind on this issue. There are few things worse than living in that kind of fear, and if conceal and carrying handguns reduces this crazyass fear in what appear to be large population groups then I'm OK with it even if it is a severe risk to the children of the gunowner etc. Living in fear is worse than living with handguns with all its ugliness. Of course the sheer number of hanguns contributes to increasing people's fears but that's the way it goes, round and round in a circle. People have too much fear.
I am all over the map--or is it the target--regarding gun ownership, and I think that is how it should be. There is nothing steadfast or permanent about the issue, except perhaps continued safety. Not all guns are penis extentions; fear and power issues aren't the only reasons to have guns. Personally, I have intermittently been around firearms all of my life and continue to own several, most of them hunting guns.
My benchmark regarding ownnership is now this: If you can't take a long walk in the deep woods or along city streets, at night, without carrying a firearm, then you should never carry one at all.
Ded
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