Areas of Unrest

5 March 2000 - The Gun Rant

QOTD: "Your theory is crazy - but not crazy enough to be true." - Niels Bohr

Reading: Dava Sobel, Galileo's Daughter

Listening to: Nomad, Songman

I have fired a gun. Looked through the sights at a target, with the rifle braced against my 10-year-old shoulder, and pulled the trigger. Felt the recoil, waited for everyone else to stop firing so we could retrieve our paper targets and see how we'd done. As an experience, it's a mere blip of memory, no more significant to me than three-legged races or games of tetherball at summer camp.

But I knew the power, knew that we all had to wait and put down our guns or somebody could get killed. I knew how easy it would be to turn and fire towards the camp counselor instead of the target. That I would do so, even towards a counselor I hated, was unthinkable.

I've heard Carole tell me she carries a gun because what other choice does a petite woman like her who works in a marginal neighborhood have? I've heard Roger tell me that he needs that protection because his unconventional lifestyle makes him a target. I've heard similar arguments so many times from so many people that I'm no longer shocked.

And then I listen to the news. Three people killed near Pittsburgh. One of them was a 71 year old man, a former priest, a pillar of the storytelling community. Somebody I knew more by name and reputation than anything else, though we had met briefly once. Joe Healy was just out to have lunch at McDonald's and was shot just because of the color of his skin. Because there's nothing that stops a mentally ill person from getting a gun as a gift from a relative. Because we've created a culture in which all people have to do to change the world is pull a little trigger.

It's not the first time I've seen the personal impact of this national travesty. I remember when Ed came into work, crying because his 11 year old nephew was in the hospital, shot by another kid because he refused to give up his backpack. I remember David's father shot by a mugger. I remember Meryl being shot by a sniper while walking to the beach. I remember Willis committing suicide. I can turn the pages of any newspaper and see a dozen stories and know a little of what the families and friends of victims go through.

I can't even comprehend the bigger news story, the murder of a 6-year old by a classmate. In our supposedly civilized society, a boy can be left in a crack house, get a gun, and kill another child. How can anybody make any sense out of that? Oh, it's easy enough to see how it happens, how people too involved with drugs to pay attention could leave a gun where a child could get it, how a child that young can't really understand what he was doing, and so on. But none of that happens if the gun isn't there.

Somebody who is determined enough will always find a way to get weapons and kill. Nothing will change that. But how much more often is a gun used because it's there and it's easy? How often do we have to hear of accidents and crimes of passion before we shout, "enough"?

I know about the 2nd Amendment on the one hand, about instant criminal checks on the other, about loophole after loophole. What we need isn't more laws. It's a change in the culture. I want us to regain our ability to be shocked at gunfire. I want us to believe that there are ways for the good guys to win without having to outgun the bad guys. I want my innocence back.

And, most of all, I want a good man to be able to grab a hamburger without fearing for his life.