My dad gave me a .410 shotgun when I was about 11 years old. This was a huge deal for me as all of my previous guns took a bit of imagination to create. Most were fashioned out of scraps of wood found around my dad’s workshop, and looking back, I realize these were likely my very first sculptures. The imaginary guns were only dangerous to imaginary villains but this new-to-me shotgun held a real shotgun shell and when the trigger was squeezed, the resulting explosion expelled a group of lead beads fast enough to break the skin and do a lot of real, physical damage.
The day my dad gave me that gun, he also took me on my first rabbit hunt. We drove to a nearby open field and walked several feet apart kicking lumps of cut grass to see if any rabbits were hiding there. One unlucky rabbit was, and just like in my imaginary scenarios, I raised my loaded gun and followed the moving target across the field with the barrel. The real gun made a very loud sound, punched my shoulder and the rabbit stopped running. Forever.
I don’t enjoy killing things and that’s the last rabbit that ever fell victim to my interest in shooting. While I will admit to suspending the animation of several squirrels, many birds and one very angry possum later in life, I’m not a hunter. I do still like shooting guns, though. That first gifted gun was one of many that my dad and I shared in common over the years of my childhood. Each gun that was shared came with a lesson on how to properly handle it. There’s a gravity to knowing that this tool has the power to change a life in a split second. This was the first time I really remember thinking about responsibility as a child.
I took that responsibility seriously and I grew to love shooting targets more and more. I had no desire to join a team or enter any sort of competition, but I absolutely loved setting up targets in our yard and spending time practicing hitting those targets with various types of guns. My dad had rifles, shotguns and handguns of varying caliber and each one came with its own set of challenges for hitting a target.
Naturally, I wanted to share this same type of experience with my kids. They both had BB guns pretty early and while they do not have guns of their own, I have taken the time to teach both of them the safe handling of various types of firearms. They’re both actually really good marksmen and like their dad, they have no desire to kill the adorable animals who are our neighbors.
Many years ago I had a solo exhibit in a hipster town. Several of my goofy drawings were on display and there were a couple of cartoonish guns in the drawings. My wife was bored and walked outside where she overheard a couple of hipsters walking out of the exhibit. They were audibly appalled by the sight of guns in my work and they decided not to continue looking at my show because of it. I can respect that. If it bothers you, don’t look at it. They’re not wrong for having boundaries and I’m not wrong for drawing a gun. Live and let live.
Now, I’ve never really felt like I fit in with other people, but around this same time, I realized that my personal beliefs about things like gun ownership were very different from some of the crowds I chose to hang with. In college I was aware that the other kids in the art program were from yuppy neighborhoods and that they did not grow up the same way I did. In grad school I was aware that my peers didn’t have the same values or priorities that I did. Sure, I was a white male but I never had the impression I was actually like any of the majority around me. In these circles I was openly mocked for having spiritual beliefs, for being southern or “country” and for having any interest in owning a gun. Heck, I even took a good mocking once in grad school for having an interest in making “pedestal based, object oriented, traditional sculptures”. Yes, I remember the exact words from 23 years ago.
As far back as I can remember, I’ve heard the arguments for “gun control”. Like all political issues, this one was caricature-ishly polarized into redneck bumper stickers and left wing alarmism. I couldn’t identify with either side. In my teen years I felt like I had to be against “gun control” laws because I was told that someone was going to take away my guns. But no one ever came for them. Eventually I realized that no one cared that I owned a gun. I also realized that while I went through an FBI background check for every gun I purchased, somewhere along the way, crazy Gotham city-like villains were not going through these checks. Then I realized that while I wanted a well-designed pistol made popular by James Bond, other gun owners wanted fully automatic assault rifles made popular by, you know, war.
Again I found myself living on the fringes. When you don’t fit in with either group, you start paying more attention to the arguments and talking points. I heard people say they used their AR-style rifle to hunt deer. I heard them say they needed assault rifles because the police and government were corrupt. I knew these people. I went to church with them. I was related to them. In other contexts I heard the same people say they were pro-life. I heard them say they were in favor of loving the people around them.
You may be able to guess that I don’t own any military-grade weapons. I don’t own any atomic bombs or sidewinder missiles. I don’t own any fighter jets and I don’t have a nuclear missile silo in my backyard. Likewise, I don’t own any rifles capable of firing hundreds of bullets per minute. With no current plans for world domination, these tools are unnecessary to me.
I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know that fully automatic firearms were made legal to the public many years ago. I did not know that anyone with money could walk into a store and purchase a gun without a federal background check. I also didn’t know that a person with documented serious mental health issues could legally purchase a firearm. These are not the “rights” guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment. These are loopholes that defy common sense and logic. They are the loopholes that have led us to the current news reports.
I am staunchly apolitical. I have a difficult time believing that anyone who wants to be a politician could possibly be mentally or emotionally stable enough to actually do it well. I generally refuse to play the little game of voting for the best looking turd in the bowl, if you’ll excuse the comparison. Perhaps it’s my fault for living on the fringes but none of these people seem to care about actually representing my values or beliefs. So, I leave them to their games and I live my life. Live and let live, right?
I’ve watched several terrible political things play out over the last 10 years. It’s easy to see the demonizing of the “other side” from where I stand. It’s also easy to see the hypocrisy. What started as me noticing that these guys, who campaigned on pro-life issues and were elected on the backs of Christians, had no desire to protect the life of an immigrant, a poor inner city kid, or a person convicted of murder, turned into something worse. The same politicians proved more interested in the money of the gun lobby and the re-election votes of their rural supporters than they were in the actual lives of school-age children and their teachers.
One of the tricks used by manipulators is to change the meaning of words. Maybe you take a term like “gun control” and you make it mean “they’re coming to take away your guns”. Maybe you take a term like “pro-life” and you make it mean “I only support protecting the lives of people I deem worthy”.
The assault weapons ban ends and you immediately see an uptick in mass shootings that occur at the barrel of an assault weapon. Common sense tells you what to do next. A mass shooting occurs at the hands of a person with a documented mental health concern who purchased a gun legally without any sort of background check. Common sense tells you what to do next.
Common sense gun laws are common sense. Doing nothing is accessory to murder at this point.
Every single politician I emailed this week to ask for common sense gun laws to be proposed and supported claim to be pro-life. How can you be pro-life and do nothing while 74 people have been killed or injured by guns in American schools Jan 1-March 28 this year? Do you think April will magically be different? So are you really pro-life or are you pro-anything that will keep you in office?
I don’t own rose colored glasses. I know that this will not fix everything. I do know it will make it more difficult for certain people to purchase firearms. I know that it will make it more difficult for people to get their hands on assault weapons. I know that it will, along with other things, help decrease the number of mass shootings and school shootings in America. That would be a step in the right direction. It would be doing something instead of nothing.
Over here on the fringes, I will still enjoy shooting cups with my kids in our backyard while monitoring the action or inaction of my local politicians. I will fire a gun into the air to scare off the coyotes who walk into my yard in broad daylight while asking for more gun control. I will vote for change and for people whose actions align with their words. I will act to give students and teachers the same chance to live and let live.
