esrosedotblog

OK. ABOUT GUNS

What do I think?

Did anyone ask?

I have struggled some with this.

I grew up in a gun-house.

My Dad hunted along with all his friends. In our town, country more or less totally, most people had guns and hunted. The kids in school.

I don't recall how many guns in the house. Not too many, I think. A simple 22 one shot which was my Dad's but which he gave to me. A deer rifle. Maybe 2 of those, but I don't think so. One of them, at least, had a clip which held bullets but you had to cock the gun or something between each firing. Later, a pistol.

I was not a gun boy. Not interested. I played the cowboys and indian thing. I was pretty good at it. I was mostly averse to hunting and didn't want to kill anything. My Dad did instruct me on the care and keeping of guns. I took the 22 out for a walk every once in a while to hunt squirrels but I never really tried to shoot anything. I never was interested at all in target shooting.

Absolutely no hunting. I wouldn't even eat game meat. A rebellion I suppose. Also, according to friends' stories, a typical gay boy being a gay boy.

Later, in college I went to ROTC. Quartermaster. The least gun totin' Corps of all. All defensive, behind the lines unless the lines caught up with the cooks and the supply depots.

To be an officer one had to qualify on the rifle range. I couldn't hit shit.

I qualified because my friends pulling the targets "pencilled" me in. Meaning they punched the targets with their pencil to make holes where there weren't any.

I was never, ever even near a combat situation.

Later, much later, in life, when my Dad died, I got his guns.

I gave the deer rifle away immediately to my cousin Jim.

I kept the 22 rifle and the pistol and registered them in Boston. I kept them in our house.

Their presence burned in my head and heart. I was afraid of them. In the sense that if I was ever to need them, to use them, I would draw the fire of any intruder. I was convinced that I was better off un-armed than armed. With a firearm, I would draw fire. Without, not so much.

I still believe that.

Finally, I gave both weapons to one of my sons. I have no idea where they are now. Frankly I hope that they are gone.

I guess that personal and life experience tells me that weapons draw violence to them. In the hands of a hunter or a target shooter (why?) they may be one thing but in any other context they draw trouble.

When I was a kid, a cousin, hunting with some other guys, leaned on his gun and shot himself in the abdomen. Killed him. The gun slipped or something and went off. Dumb? Sure. But typical. You read about such accidents all the time.

When I had those guns in the house, it was after I had little kids around. Actually, there were no kids around. Just two adults. Males. Sort of trained to use the guns. But still, they called to me. I thought about them. I worried that someone would find them. Shit. I just had to get them out.

Now. What about other people having them?

I don't know.

That's right. I don't know.

I do actually believe that guns don't kill people, people do.

Yes. I bought the NRA party line in that respect.

I do not think there should be any automatic weapons out there. But there are. What to do?

Surely, they are also right when they claim that the people who are nutty will never surrender their guns. But what about the "good" people who think that they need to have them "for protection". Protection from who? What?

There is a whole spectrum of paranoia about this from the honest desire to have something in the house to ward against intruders to a belief that you need to have guns to protect yourself from the government. The socialists. The blacks. The browns. The unknowns.

So. How about a gun law?

More power to them.

The US takes a bad rap for having so many firearms. Like no other country has this problem. Tell that to any Palestinian or Russian or even in peaceful Norway to the young people felled by the crazy guy on that island.

It is just there. Inherent evil. How do you defang it?

I do not know.

I know that for me, it will continue to be no guns, no how, no way. And I will support people who will work on the problem like Obama wants to do.

The NRA who, at one time, was at least respectable, has gone over the bend. Spit flecked rhetoric.

The patriots? Watch out.

The ones I worry about are the Bachmans and Palins of the world. All hyped on fear and rhetoric and ready to charge ahead.

Labels: gun control, whack jobs