I fired one gun in my life. It was at the rifle range at a summer camp for crippled kids. I was eleven years old.
Shooting paper bull’s-eyes full of holes at the rifle range was by far my favorite summer camp activity because I was quite the militaristic child. My career ambition was to be an “Army guy,” just like my old man. There was nobody cooler than Army guys. They had all those colorful cool medals pinned on the shirts of their cool uniforms. Army guys had war buddies, like my dad’s war buddy Dick. I called him Uncle Dick. I thought it would be so cool to have a war buddy of my very own. War buddies were like brothers. I didn’t have a brother.
Army guys were everybody’s hero. My favorite television show was Combat!, where valiant U.S. Army guys fought, just like my old man, to keep the “Krauts” from seizing Europe. I had the most extensive and impressive platoon of toy U.S. Army guys on the whole block, and I kept them busy day and night, fighting heroically to stop the Krauts from seizing my front lawn and bedroom. I even had a few toy Krauts. My Army guys won every time. They were like the Harlem Globetrotters. My two favorite, most heroic toy Army guys were named Uncle Dick and Daddy. They talked to each other like war buddies talk.
“Watch out for Krauts, Uncle Dick,” said Daddy.
“10-4, Daddy,” Uncle Dick replied.
The rifle I shot at summer camp was a .22 caliber bolt action. The bullets, as I recall, were only about an inch long and maybe a quarter inch thick. Maybe I could’ve killed a chipmunk with that gun, if I shot it right between the eyes. Nonetheless, shooting made me feel powerful. After I mercilessly shot up a paper bull’s-eye, it was reeled in with a pulley system so I could assess all the beautiful damage I’d done. I kept all my bullet-hole-riddled targets. They were my most treasured summer cripple camp souvenirs.
But the next summer the rifle range was permanently closed. The adults said it was because Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were both shot to death earlier that year. I was so disappointed. What would I do at summer camp now? Arts and crafts? I hated arts and crafts! It was so lightweight, especially when compared with shooting a rifle. They’d probably make me do some really lame project, like make a box out of popsicle sticks and Elmer’s glue and give it to my mom so she could store her bobby pins in it. What a lightweight souvenir.
Do you mean to tell me that you can stroll into a Bass Pro Shop and purchase a machine gun way more powerful than the ones the Army guys fired on Combat!?
That was more than fifty years ago, and that .22 caliber bolt action remains the only gun I’ve fired. Or even touched. I’m pretty sure it’s also the only gun I’ve ever even been near that wasn’t attached to the hip of a cop. It’s not that I have a monogamous devotion to the first and only gun I ever loved. I just don’t often end up in places where there are guns or gun enthusiasts. Except for during the time I spent on the summer camp rifle range, I’ve never heard a real gunshot—and I live in Chicago.
As a lifelong resident, I’ve seen that guy who rides the Clark Street bus dressed like Jesus, with a wooden cross flung back over his shoulder. I’ve seen a one-legged pigeon. But until a few years ago I never saw a gun store here. The two or three times I’ve seen an actual gun store elsewhere, it’s really creeped me out. They advertise guns for sale like my local grocery pushes broccoli.
If I enter a gun store, will an expert salesperson help me select a gun that’s perfect for a man of my sophisticated tastes, like a sommelier helping me choose wine? I’ve never seen or been to a gun show either. That would creep me out even worse. An itinerant flea market with acres and acres of guns? It’s ghoulish.
Shortly after another one of those instances where someone shot up a church or school or something, I received an email urging me to sign a petition. I get about a dozen of those petition emails every week. This particular petition was addressed to Johnny Morris, chief executive officer of Bass Pro Shops, and it demanded that the store chain 1) immediately stop selling assault weapons and 2) not sell any weapons at all to people under twenty-one.
Again I was shocked. Do you mean to tell me that you can stroll into a Bass Pro Shop and purchase a machine gun way more powerful than the ones the Army guys fired on Combat!? And a twenty-year-old can go to the strip mall and buy a gun but not beer?
Even in Chicago, I’m seeing more and more of those stickers that have a red line through a black silhouette of a gun at the entrances of public places like theaters, restaurants, and even emergency rooms. That seems like it ought to be a given. Of course it’s not OK to bring a gun into a theater, restaurant, or emergency room. Why is that even up for discussion? Why not also put up a sticker of a red slash line through the black silhouette of a grizzly bear, just in case anybody is wondering if it’s OK to bring one of them inside, too?
And I’ve never seen a private citizen exercising their God-given Second Amendment right to carry an unconcealed gun in public. That would shock me as much as seeing someone walking down the street wearing no pants.
People who celebrate guns scare me. I can maybe swallow rationalizing gun ownership as a necessary evil, to protect one’s family and all. But some people strut their guns. And that means they usually have a vast collection. I think it’s obvious there’s a deep insecurity at the root of all that. It almost makes me want to buy a gun to protect myself from them.
But if the summer camp rifle range hadn’t been abruptly shut down, might I have developed a similar deep affection for guns? The way things worked out, it would be just dandy with me if every damn gun in the universe was seized and melted down into a giant bowling-ball-looking sculpture that would be a monument to human stupidity.
The sculpture would be so enormous you could see it from outer space. (What about the rights of hunters? Hey, even after all guns are seized and melted down, no one’s stopping them from hunting. If they’re itching to kill a moose or bear to bring home as a trophy, they can wrestle one down with their bare hands.)
My leftist friends who were communists way back in their college days disagree with me vehemently about that one. They still believe that the proletariat needs to be ready to take up arms. If the oppressive government has all the guns, no one will be able to fight back.
But I don’t know. I don’t think any of us stands much of a chance of prevailing in a shootout with the government. I sure don’t. I’m too crippled to pick up a fork. It’s too heavy. So I definitely can’t pick up a gun, let alone pull the trigger. If I can’t hold the government at bay through good old-fashioned street protests and civil disobedience and stuff like that, I’m pretty much screwed.
So, in other words, I wouldn’t derive any comfort or sense of security from packing heat. The only way I would carry a gun would be if I was a blind person living in Iowa. In Iowa, blind people can get permits to carry loaded guns in public. State law doesn’t allow sheriffs to refuse to issue permits to them just because they might not be able to see what they’re shooting at.
And that’s the way it should be, dammit! The Second Amendment is absolute, right? Every true patriot knows exactly what the infinitely wise authors of our Constitution meant when they wrote, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
They meant that each and every mope has the absolute right to possess each and every gun and take it and use it wherever they want. They couldn’t have made it more clear.
So if I was a blind person in Iowa, you’re damn right I’d get a gun permit! I couldn’t resist the urge. And I would wear my gun proudly, just to be a smart ass. But if I displayed my gun openly, it wouldn’t be a real gun because I know what would for sure happen. I’d be out and about with a gun on my hip and tapping my white cane and some smart-ass kids would sneak up on me, snatch it out of my holster, and run. u