GUNS and MASS KILLINGS
A Modest Proposal
Some time ago I wrote apiece on guns for Daily Kos that was widely read and applauded in these pages. In it I mentioned that I had once been a marksman instructor, had been on a high-school rifle-team, had been a gun-collector (between my father collected flintlock rifles and pistols and I collected cap-and-ball dueling pistols and revolvers. Between us, we had about 150 guns). For modern shooting we had a pre-Japan model 70 Winchester in .220 Swift caliber, a Parker Brothers 12 gauge shotgun; a 6.5 x54mm Mannliccher-Schoenaur carbine, a Marlin Microgroove .22 caliber lever action, a Stevens .410 shotgun, and a Ruger Single Six .22 caliber revolver. Furthermore, I was, for much of my life, an avid hunter and fisherman, and during the Sixties, living on communes, was an effective, subsistence poacher of bush-meat.
I specify these details because like many Americans, I loved guns. I loved them aesthetically; loved their fine machining, loved their reliability, their sense of kinetic power, and I must include that I loved the power over life and death that they implied and offered the young boy I was.
Two different sets of mass killings have prompted this collection of ideas and spurred my thinking to see if there was not something that I might be able to contribute to current dialogue on and around the subject of Guns. Thee first set included the mass murders in Paris, France, Orlando, Florida and Dallas, Texas. In Paris in November 2015, fifteen people died and 21 were wounded (BBC). In June of this year, in Orlando, 49 people were killed and 53 wounded, and in Dallas, just this week 5 people were murdered.
I would not suggest that they are comparable, but in November of 2014 in Roswell, New Mexico, 93 Coyotes were killed in a contest which awarded an assault rifle to the shooter who claimed the most kills. Many Americans would be shocked to learn that thousands of coyotes, foxes, bobcats, prairie dogs, crows, and even wolves are targeted in “wildlife killing contests” around the country where contestants win prizes and awards for simply killing the most or largest of a given species. Why do I include these animal kills in the same article as human kills?
America is being unnecessarily polarized around the issue of guns and the implied consequence of mass murder. No one but psychopaths will ever speak up in support of mass killings of humans, but there is a vocal minority who are adamant about preserving their right to exterminate masses of animals for no reason but sport or joy. There is no scientifically valid reason for this disruption of ecological good health, yet the practice continues. The fact that both are committed with guns muddies the water around an important debate whose acrimony could be softened with a number of modest adjustments.
If human life is sacred, all life is sacred, because no human life stands alone, outside the universe that supports it. If a fetus is sacred and granted rights in the womb, it would follow that the sperm and egg which produced it must be sacred as well, and working backwards the bodies that produced those reproductive ingredients must be sacred. No human has ever been “independent” of oxygen, sunlight, and microbes in the soil that support our food. Consequently we have never been free of pollinating insects, birds to control them and animals to control predators of our crops and food. Creation is a seamless web, and in the same way that if our biological father gave us a bicycle and we left it outdoors to weather and rust from neglect, is it so hard to imagine that Whoever or Whatever fashioned this Creation might be pretty pissed at the lack of respect we’ve afforded it.
Allowing “Killing Contests” of wild game, as if someone owned it and could dispose of it at will, is an aberration that no hunter, and basically no wild animal would ever imitate. No warrior kills for thrills. No hunter who eats what he or she brings down would ever disrespect his or her own food to that degree. The fact that some Coyotes, Bobcats, Raccoons etc. may eat animals that human beings prize is no more of an excuse to slaughter them than it would be for Christian-Americans to arm-up for murderous rampages against Muslim-Americans in revenge for American deaths at the hands of ISIL or the Taliban.
Okay, but people like to teach their kids to shoot, like to congregate with their friends outdoors, practice marksmanship and have fun. Why not? There’s nothing wrong with any of it, but why tarnish that with the ignorance of senseless animal murder because a particular species is not on your “favorites” list?
Americans love guns, but we don’t take much responsibility for that love. When I was young we had a rifle team in my grade school, where we competed and were taught safety and marksmanship. It was a lot of fun and based on that training and my parents’ assurance of my character, my friends and I were free to roam woods and fields with our weapons. It was a mark of respect from our families, and a source of pride that we were careful not to damage.
Where might we look for some remedy to the current situation? I would propose to Ammunition and Weapons manufacturers that the establishing of a competitive standard called (for instance) Crack shot Sharpshooter might initiate a new, wholesome sport that would bear fruit in the teaching of safety and responsibility around the subject of weapons. Say, the tightest group of four shots at different ranges, depending on age, would win a trophy, a weapon (with a badge of some kind in the stock), a box of Ammo or scope, etc. Shifting the focus to accuracy and skill and disassociating guns from random killing (of people or animals) could invite a much greater number of people into the tent who might support the idea of a sport taught in schools and community centers, by Army, Police, and qualified marksman instructors. (Me among them) For manufacturers and salesmen, it could seriously broaden the market for guns and ammunition in a way, which might compensate for any downtick due to my next suggestion.
While AR-15’s and other military style weapons may be big sellers, recent events have demonstrated that they have no place in civilian hands. A “well regulated militia” is the US Army and police forces, and while no one seeks to deprive citizens of their right to own guns, we ought to extend the ban on fully automatic weapons and silencers to include these semi-automatic ‘fantasy’ weapons of mass destruction. Why?
The first and best argument is the death toll of children and innocents that have resulted from such weapons falling into the hands of sociopaths and psychopaths. It has created a schism in the society where it becomes difficult to speak about guns in a non-divisive way, which is bad news for all those who like and respect guns and shooting. No one would ever leave a child unattended in a room filled with razor blades, poisons, open wiring, and other hazards, and yet we have created such a superfluity of available weapons, that the metaphor holds for the society at large. The infants (sociopaths and psychopaths, the terminally angry or suicidal) have only to make the slightest effort and they can lay their hands on weapons of mass destruction that Attila the Hun (or our Founding Fathers) could never have imagined. We would not be following these tragic news reports if the gunmen of Paris, Orlando and Dallas had six-shot clips.
Secondly, while it may be a mental pet for ‘militia groups’ to imagine that they will stand off the full weight and power of the US government should it become an instrument of oppression, the facts are that they are small isolated groups, far from mainstream values and beliefs. Disliking taxes, or Federal ownership of Western land, or a Federal Government per se is not an issue on the agenda of most people or our Nation’s political majority. While the military style militia groups are paying attention to those issues, their farms have been foreclosed, their jobs shipped overseas, and the Nation’s tax-structure is impoverishing them and enriching the class of people manufacturing the weapons they are rushing to buy.
It is past time for citizens who assert no interest in guns per se to begin to take an interest, because they and their children are vulnerable to the destruction they can create. This is the case because the majority of our citizens have abandoned the field to extremists of many stripes and our indulgent support of business interests and lobbyists for the weapons industry. What harm could accrue from teaching children safe practices in the presence of weapons (say if a friend should “show off” a weapon from home or bring one to school). Introducing young people to the discipline and skill required to be a crack shot and the mastery of safe practices, and demystifying the subject and behavior required to live in a culture awash with deadly weapons before the next tragedy could only be a positive.
Weapons manufacturers might find that voluntary restraints on the sale of military style weapons to consumers might reap them a windfall of citizen support, facilitating their access to schools, colleges, and training facilities required to be competent and rational around weapons and/or to compete in Crack-Shot Sharpshooter contests, broadening and expanding their markets in a healthy manner.
I think of enlisting someone like Bill Wood, former Junior National Champion, member of the US National Shooting Team and Olympic Competitor, and trainer of military snipers as a ridge pole around which a sound and sensible US Policy and Amateur group might be established with the goal of separating Civilian and Military designations of “appropriate” weapons; the ending of Wildlife Killing Contests; the buy-back and removal of weapons we deem to be unsafe on the streets; if our police marksmen could moonlight in the schools and communities as instructors we would have a less mystified, more skillful, citizenry grounded in reality, and less available to murderous fantasies. We’ve tried doing nothing? How’s that working for us? At least this idea would unite contradictory divisions in our society by bringing them together at a higher level. What do you think?