I grew up with guns in a small upstate New York town but even forty years ago there were plenty of instances of gun violence. When I was in fifth grade, one of the first graders came to school covered in blood. His father had shot and killed his mother, then sent the boy to school and shot himself. In tenth grade, a senior whom I knew only slightly shot himself to death when his girl broke up with him. Around the same time, a boy shot and wounded three other boys on the main street of a neighboring town. Right after I graduated from high school, a girl I knew well was shot and killed by an older man who had stalked her for years. I helped to carry her coffin to her grave.
So on the one hand, I could see there were people who used guns to do terrible things to other people and to themselves. But when I was younger, guns seemed like fun too, at least up until that girl was murdered. When I was a very small kid, maybe six or seven, my father would take me and my brother shooting at cans and bottles. We took turns shooting a .22 rifle, an old 30-06 army rifle and a .45 colt revolver. When I was fourteen, I got a hunting license and shot some rabbits and squirrels. When I was fifteen or so, my friends and I thought it was fun to go to the dump at night with flashlights and shoot rats.
But here’s what I came to think about guns after I was no longer a kid. For most people, they are instruments of fantasy. From my own experiences, I did not think it possible to hold a gun of any kind in your hand without fantasizing about shooting it. And who do you imagine shooting it at? A bulls-eye? I don’t think so. I think the fantasy of a gun always fastens onto a living thing, a bear or a deer and sooner or later, a person. Oh sure, a bad person, an evil, dangerous person but a person. It puts ideas in your head that would not be there if you did not have a gun. That’s what I came to think
You can hold a knife and think about nothing more than peeling an apple. You can chop firewood with an ax and not contemplate beheading anyone. But I wonder if you can hold a gun and think about anything other than the sound of the explosion and the bullet smashing into a living thing. I wonder how many gun owners have actually acknowledged the thoughts a gun puts into your mind.
Would that old man in Las Vegas have chosen to kill all those people if he did not have semi-automatic rifles and the means to turn them automatic? Did he buy all those 40 guns with the clear intent of using them or did the idea grow on him the more he looked at and handled his guns? These are questions that cannot be answered but I believe they must be asked.
If they are honest, more than a few “normal” gun owners have fantasies of dangerous people coming into their homes at night, or assaulting them on the streets. And far too many imagine defending themselves against imaginary government agents coming up the driveway to seize their guns. Politicians who oppose gun control do not talk about these fantasies but I suggest that if they dropped into the local gun store, I did after Obama was elected, they would find plenty of perfect strangers willing to share such fantasies.
Like poison, guns exist for the purpose of killing. People may say they are collectors or that guns are their hobby. I may find that poison is the only way to get rid of the mice in my garage but my neighbors would be very nervous if I told them that collecting mouse poison is my hobby. Or that I enjoy the sport of poisoning mice.
Once you admit that the purpose of guns is to kill, you can make a rational case for the few people who truly need them. Police officers and soldiers. Maybe some security guards. If a person has to transport money, okay. If a farmer needs to kill coyotes or other predators, okay. And maybe people who live in isolated rural locations without adequate police protection. What I am saying is that the only people who need guns are people who may have a need to kill dangerous people or animals. People who like to make loud noises for fun or who like to wait in trees and shoot deer do not actually need guns. They may like them in the same way other people like fishing rods or golf clubs but they do not need them.
But I am not completely unrealistic. I only want to imagine an ideal of gun ownership toward which rational people could work. I know that in this country 300 million guns, we are a long, long way from keeping the most dangerous guns away from everyone who happens to like them but doesn’t really need them.
So here’s what I propose as an ideal:
1-The only long guns which people would be allowed to own would be those used in the late nineteenth century, such as single shot, lever action and bolt action rifles. Shot guns, however, would be limited to double and single barrel versions because so much damage can be done with even a pump-action. No semi-automatic rifles or shot guns would be allowed.
2-Hand guns would be limited to revolvers containing six or fewer shots. No semi-automatic pistols would be allowed. Extra-large calibers like .44 magnum and .35 magnum would be banned.
Every state that I know of has special seasons for hunting with a bow,crossbow and black powder musket. There is no reason why these weapons should be restricted.
Revolvers are more than sufficient for personal self-defense and even for most police use. Up until a few years ago, a .38 revolver was standard police issue. It does make sense, however, for police departments today to have more firepower available when needed, but not for routine patrols.
I have no problem with background checks but I truly believe that all gun ownership, no matter what the owner’s background, is potentially dangerous. There is always a higher risk of suicide when there is a gun, particularly a handgun, in the house. Too often, children tend to find guns and shoot other children. My young nephew was at a relative’s house years ago when his mother found him and his cousin playing with a pistol they found in a closet. That time nobody died.
Another unexplored problem of gun ownership is that millions of gun owners die annually and there is no check on what happens to their guns. Too many must simply pass into general circulation. When my father-in-law died thirty years ago, my wife was cleaning up his house and found a 9mm Beretta, a war souvenir nobody knew of. She turned in to the police department but I wonder how many times that happens. No background check covers what happens to your guns after you die.
I’m not talking about an immediate practical solution to our epidemic of gun violence. But over time, thinking can and does change. When I was a kid, my Irish grandmother warned me never to start drinking but she thought cigarettes were a harmless pastime. I doubt if there’s any grandmas out there today who’d give that kind of advice.
I’ve given lots of examples from my own life not because they are unusual but because everybody, at least in rural America, has similar stories. Guns are embedded in everyday life. But that does not mean something cannot be done. The place to start is with the idea that guns are a necessary evil, neither a healthy hobby nor a sacred right. They are as unnecessary as cigarettes were and are not even as widely used. In a couple of generations that whole mentality has changed. I am convinced that the same thing can happen with guns.