I started out commenting on a post from a day or so ago about limiting the capacity of all guns for the commercial weapons and realized my comment was going to be far too long. There had already been several great comments about that specific premise, so I didn’t have much to add until I realized that my personal background had some relevance to the larger subject and would be best served as a separate post.
You see, I grew up in rural Western Montana, where the gun culture is alive and thriving to this day. Almost all of my relatives own guns. Most of them (but not all) only own hunting weapons, specifically for gathering food. Most of my aunts, uncles and cousins who own guns only have shotguns and hunting rifles for birds, deer, elk and Bison. It is completely in line with our Native ancestry. In fact, most of cousins still live on the reservation I grew up on, as do my parents and one of my sister’s family.
I grew up harvesting mostly Elk, but killed a deer one time and bagged lots of game birds over the years. I took the NRA Sponsored Hunters Safety Course at 12 in 1982. Back then, it was mandated that people under 18 take this course if they wanted to legally hunt as a minor. I went hunting that first season of 1982. I didn’t bag my first deer or elk that year, but had more success over time.
As a kid, being able to hunt was a very big deal, as my dad and uncles fed all of us that way. As a kid, I wanted to do the same. After all, who doesn’t look up to their elders when you’re a little kid? You felt a great sense of accomplishment if you were a “good provider” for your family and that motivated me.
Almost nobody I knew as a kid had a hand gun. If they did, it was usually a revolver. Rifles were mostly lever action (I used my grandpa’s 300 Savage lever action my first couple of seasons) or bolt action (like the one I now own). I really only saw a few people I knew hunting with semi-auto rifles. The exceptions were one of my Dad’s friends, who had a semi automatic 30-06 with a detachable magazine and another friend’s semi-auto shotgun. Most hunted with bolt action rifles without magazines and break-open or pump shotguns. None of these firearms were legal to hold more than 3 rounds; neither shotguns or bolt action game rifles. Lever action and .22 caliber’s were the exception, as I recall.
There was great debate about what was the best caliber: Ranchers often had a lever action 30-30 for coyotes and deer, but also would use a .243. Elk and deer hunters carried some common caliber rifles: 30-06, .270, and the less commonly, the 7mm Remington Magnum (my rifle, which was ballistically on par with the tried-and-true 30-06). A few folks had rifles manufactured by Wetherby, such as the .300 Wetherby Magnum. The Wetherby were considered “fancy”, as they were a newer design and were supposedly safer. It was more expensive, as a result. It is also able shoot more accurately at greater distances than the aforementioned cartridges due to the larger cartridge size (more powder = more power/distance). The .300 Weatherby Mag is in the same class as the Remington Model 700 sniper rifles the military still uses to some degree. A high caliber, heavy projectile traveling at high velocities will allow for taking shots at bigger game and longer distances with confidence and kinetic energy (measured in foot pounds [fp]) to still be lethal. But, no matter what, it takes training. As far as the safety aspect, the breech of a bolt action rifle can explode due to excess pressure in the chamber caused by a double feed or some other mechanical malfunction followed by a discharge of the round. Serious injury or death was a real concern. The Weatherby had a unique breech design which would not turn into shrapnel as readily (if at all) in the event or a catastrophic failure.
There were no civilian versions of the Armalite Rifle (AR) available to the public (at least not in my teenage recollection). I grew up listening to hours of debate about which calibers were the best for different scenarios. There weren’t really any gun collectors in my circles because, frankly, most people didn’t have a lot of money. It would not have made sense for anyone back then to have a rifle like that. It wasn’t practical and basically would just be a money dump because, again, most people didn’t have a lot or spare cash, so blowing through ammo with a rifle that is less accurate than a bolt action rifle of the same caliber wasn’t something most people would do.
Another fact was that a lot of the men I grew up around were veterans of WWII, Korea and Vietnam. I never heard anyone pining for the military battle rifle, at least not for hunting. I have vague recollections of my Grandpa talking about a rifle he was issued during WWII that he’d wished he’d kept, but I don’t think it was for anything other than a keepsake. It would not have made sense to any of these people for hunting. Although there were few people who owned .223 rifles, they were not usually hunting deer. It was more of a ranch gun for killing coyotes that might prey on the calves, dogs and other small farm animals, or for killing ground squirrels (sometimes).
The culture I was raised in treated guns as tools that were capable of immense damage, so you treated them with respect. That culture changed in the 90s when the Soviet Union dissolved and cheap Eastern Block weapons were modified to be semi-auto and marketed in the States. Surplus military style weapons and ammo from Soviet countries were pretty cheap, so people could pick something up and just “plink” with them and not break the bank. But it was still too expensive for me, as I was just starting out after college with debt, a car payment and trying to find a decent job.
I started target shooting with hand guns on occasion in the 2000s when I was making a decent living and had more disposable income. I didn't own one until about 2009, right after Obama got sworn in. I purchased a Glock 20 (10mm auto) as a side arm to defend against potential bear and cougar attacks while archery hunting for elk. This caliber could also be used for hunting, but that’s not why I bought it. It was sheer luck to even be able track one down due to the hysteria of the time; guns and ammo were flying off the shelves because “Obama was gonna take your guns!” It was that hysteria that started to concern me. The attitude about guns and gun ownership had drastically changed, even from pre-Obama times. It was more sinister. For the first time in my life, I was concerned about what my seemingly “normal neighbor” was capable of. The rhetoric was getting very militant and weird stuff was happening. I also had two young boys and had heard gunfire more than once in my sleepy little neighborhood. I started to think about home defense.
Over the next 7 years, I purchased 3 more handguns: Glock 19 and 2 9x18 Bulgarian Makarovs. These were fairly practical weapons. Both have a good reputation for reliability and are easy to clean and service. Honestly, they are fun to shoot, but they are still just tools with one purpose: killing human beings.
After the 2016 election, obviously things got tense. Trump had awoken an ugly monster in the NRA/RWNJs. I felt the scenario of a truckload of body-armored, AR-totin’, Gadsden/Confederate-Flag-wavin’ marauders (we have them in and around Seattle, for sure) showing up in my neighborhood wasn’t so far-fetched anymore. I just didn’t want to be out-gunned in that crazy, unlikely scenario. With the increased number of shootings with ARs and the images of so many unhinged, fascist-minded people, I decided to get an AR-15...well 2. I built out 2 of them and also made one AR9 (9mm version of the AR rifle).
Practically speaking, with the ubiquity of the AR platform, I wanted to learn how to smith and service that type of weapon. Building something like this is an education, for sure. You learn fast what to look for when things aren’t quite working. I installed the gas block backwards the first time and the bolt could not go all the way “into battery”. I even seated the buffer tube too deeply when building the AR9, which cause cycling problems. Lots of little things were needed to be tuned, but once I got the AR15 running, it was dependable and accurate (as accurate as that platform can be, that is). It was actually the first AR I shot.
Here’s the deal. ARs are relatively cheap (or at least they were until the 2020 election happened). I purchased parts over time starting in 2017. The AR9 was the most expensive because they are just not as common, so parts are more expensive. I think I put ~$550 into it with basic hardware features. I spent between $390 and $450 on the other 2. You can buy cheaper handguns today, but they are not as reliable. Middle-tier handguns in most manufacturers lines are more expensive than this. Don’t get me wrong, you can spend thousands of dollars, but it is not necessary. It is not important to me that everything matches and is pretty. I need to be confident that it will work when I need it. I believe it has become “cool” to a lot of people and manufacturers take advantage by marketing these “stylish” guns to the public and make huge money at it. It doesn’t make these guns better, just more expensive.
Being that I don’t have the same mindset of the Far-Right, 2nd Amendment people, it didn’t excite me. I still view it as a tool, but not a tool for hunting game. Yes, I was proud of my ability to build it myself, but it didn’t give me a thrill. When you first shoot one, you realize these things are scary-capable, which has been proven too many times in this country and in combat. I emphasize “scary”, because fear is what drove me to this place.
The culture around guns now in Montana in Right-wing circles is way different from 35 years ago. The prevailing attitude is what we see at modern day NRA rallies. I believe the majority of them do fantasize about the coming war against the liberals and the government. I believe the elders from my life viewed guns as tools to provide meat and had no desire to get weapons or war. Too many had seen war first-hand. They would not recognize these gun owners of today. They’d most likely call them “dangerous”. Not because they have guns, but because they would qualify that description by calling them “crazy”. “Crazy people with guns” sounds scary...because it is. We’ve seen it too many times.
I believe it is okay for people to have hunting weapons, so long as they are limited in capacity as it was when I was a kid. Even handguns are okay, so long as they are limited in capacity. 3-5 rounds per magazine seems very reasonable. But, unequivocally, civilians should not own assault rifles like the AR-15. Seems like I’m a hypocrite, but I will gladly turn over my weapons of war to stop sacrificing our children to the god Moloch like people did in ancient times, not to mention mothers and fathers, so long as everyone has to do it. It is hard to be free when you can never feel safe in the public space. Rational, stricter gun laws (including bans) are all that will make a difference.