Guns, The First and Last of a Series

 The Gun Owner's Mind

This entry will serve as the finale to the firearm extravaganza I've written over the past few weeks.  It's intended to provide a bit of illumination into the minds of gun owners, which may be helpful for those who don't live abroad or believe we buy guns in order to stoke the evil in our hearts.  

By now, you know I like to deal in facts, so I'll start with some additional statistics relevant to this discussion.  According to a 2019 Pew Research poll, 44% of Americans say they either own a gun or live with someone who does.  Among those who own guns, 66% report owning more than one gun, with 29% owning more than five guns.  32% admit to providing a lower number to reflect what they've told their wives.  I may have made that last one up.  At 67%, protection is the number one motivation for gun ownership, followed by hunting (38%), sport shooting (30%), gun collecting (13%), and because it's required for their job (8%).  

The piece of data that I think brings illumination into the mind of a gun owner is that roughly half grew up with guns in their household.  I know a lot of folks that fall into this category, including myself.  My grandfather had guns and he taught me how to shoot at an early age.  He had a lever action 22 rifle (which is now in my safe) and we'd go shoot cans on his property.  It was a lot of fun, learning how to aim, properly pull the trigger, and satisfying when you hit what you were aiming at.  He heavily stressed gun safety, along with being responsible and cleaning your gun immediately after you were done.  

How Gun Owners See Firearms

This is the meat and potatoes that I think is important for those not familiar with guns to read.  There is one important concept the reader needs to if not grasp, recognize.  Most of us who own guns find shooting them to be enjoyable.  Yesterday, I grabbed a couple of guns and went to my club.  It was both relaxing and rewarding to put four bullets through the same hole at one hundred yards.  Once I'm fully vaccinated, I'll begin competing again.  If you read my original entry where I outline that decision, you already know I did it for the social aspect as much as the shooting itself.  

In order to drive my point home, I'll share one additional experience for those who still think we're nuts for enjoying these death machines.  A few of the women I've dated, including my now ex-wife, were hardcore anti gun liberals.  They didn't want anyone to have a gun, particularly an evil AR-15.  In each of those instances, I offered to take them shooting, so they could experience the AR-15's dearth of evil for themselves.  All took me up on the offer (partially because they knew I would have dumped them had they not) and said roughly the same thing to me:  When can we go again?  Shooting is fun, people! 

As an ambassador for gun owners everywhere, I'm willing to make the same offer to any other attractive women who've never been shooting and want to sleep with me.

Recognizing shooting as a legitimate and non-evil hobby brings us that much closer to a meeting of the minds.  With that established, it wouldn't be unreasonable for those in that hobby to want a variety of guns to enjoy.  Guns are typically at a median price point where you won't bankrupt yourself for acquiring more than one; $800-$1,500.  But prices run across an entire spectrum.  The least expensive gun I own is a Russian Makarov I bought when they first became available in the US.  I bought it because 'first Russian gun you can buy in the US and it's only $100'.  That gun is worth $550 now, which illustrates another point; you'll almost never lose money on one.  You can spend a whole lot more, obviously.  A custom 1911 can set you back up to $8k and taken sixty steps further, a pair of shotguns built by Holland and Holland can set you back close to half a million dollars.  They'd better come with a concierge blowjob service for that money.  

If you grew up with guns, you may have also inherited a few that live in your safe, such as the 22 lever action rifle I mentioned above or the 32 caliber revolver that my great great grandfather carried as a constable.  Those can add up as well.

Touching on owning a gun for protection, I think I'm similar to others in that I consider such as gun to be a tool.  Along with the vast majority who own guns for protection, I didn't make the decision from an imminent threat, rather something to have in case it's needed.  Unless we live in a certain type of neighborhood or are employed in a high risk job, we recognize the need to utilize that tool to be infinitesimally small.   However, just like a flashlight or fire extinguisher, it's there if we find ourselves in a situation where that type of tool is required.  

At the risk of another digression, let me address a common misperception / belief that many non-gun owners have about law enforcement.  Specifically, that only law enforcement (LE) is properly trained and should therefore be the only ones to carry guns.  In my experience, and that of many other shooters I know, LE as a whole is comically unskilled, when it comes to firearm capability and safety.  According to a friend of mine, one of the favorite past times for local shooters is to go to a particular indoor range when the Overland Park PD is about to requalify with their handguns.  Just don't be in the same room, because you'll see the cops put bullets into the floor, through the ceiling, and everywhere else, save the target they were supposed to be shooting.  When I was actively competing, I also served as the range safety officer for the squad I was with.  I only ever had to disqualify two shooters for unsafe gun handling.  One accidentally put a round into the dirt midway between the two of us (which was about 18") and the other swept my chest with a loaded gun, when they turned the wrong way during a stage (closest I've ever come to shitting my pants).  What they had in common was, you guessed it, both were LE.  

Hopefully, that answers the three most common questions to those of us who own guns:  Why do you own guns?  Do you really need a gun?  Why do you feel the need to have so many guns?

I've done my best to be a good ambassador and provide some insight to those who the concept of owning guns may be alien or unsettling.  

Culture of Fear

Perhaps I've cleared up a few misconceptions, but the media and libs continue to stoke the fear of guns.  Today provides a perfect example.  CNN is reporting that there have been TWENTY mass shootings between the time of the Atlanta spa killings and yesterday, when a gunman killed four in Los Angeles.  (I obviously wrote this a few days ago.)  Holy shit!  There really is an epidemic!  Except CNN is manipulating the numbers to make a more sensational story.  As I noted in my other entries on the topic, the FBI / Federal Government defines a mass shooting as an event that claimed four or more lives.  Mother Jones uses a lower threshold of three deaths.  However, CNN considers a mass shooting to be one that has a total of four deaths or wounded.  Others don't use the number of wounded specifically  because of how broad the definition can be.  Taking a small bullet fragment into your leg doesn't do anything but hurt (been there, done that), but it still counts as a wound.  In other words, I could fire a few rounds into the sidewalk of a crowded street and it would be considered a mass shooting by CNN, due to bullet fragments finding people's legs.  Worth noting is that the Mother Jones database doesn't list any mass shootings during the same period CNN claims twenty took place.   

One could argue that the right has stoked fear among gun owners over civil unrest and the government coming for their guns, causing them to buy and hoard everything they can get their hands on.  One could just as easily argue the left has done the same thing.  This is one area in which I'll admit to being biased.  To me, having a sufficient firepower to deal with as many zombies that come my way is called being properly prepared.  

Wrapping Up

Throughout this series, I've done my best to be an ambassador for my fellow gun owners.  Hopefully,  readers no longer view owning firearms, particularly multiples, as some sort of aberrant behavior.  That owning multiple guns makes one even more dangerous to society.  

I'm tired of being demonized by the left because they want an easy villain, instead of taking action against the real problems.  There's no way the libs can't recognize taking away guns will only cause more people to want them.  However, most Americans don't have the attention span to digest complex social issues.  They want someone or something to blame and government to make it go away.  

Thanks for making it through the long slog on the gun topic.  I hope you consider the time you spent reading these entries to have some value. 

Addressing Gun Violence - The Prequel

Based upon some of the questions and comments from readers of my previous entries on gun violence, I thought it may be of value to step back and examine the origin's of America's gun culture and why it's perpetuated.  In addition, I'll throw out some gun owner's insight on our hobby. 

Gun Culture in the USA

In order to best understand why the US has the gun culture it does, I find it helpful to explore why other countries don't.  Let's go back to the founding of this country for a quick look at the two sides that fought each other.  The bad guys lived under a monarchy and were professional soldiers for the largest empire on the planet, where the good guys, who kicked their asses, had a fledgling democratic government and were anything but professional soldiers.  This is the first glimpse of the everyman as a hero, in this country, fighting for his very freedom.  This underdog kept his musket by the front door, should he be called upon by his country again.  What about his opponent, the Red Coat?  Once he came home, and exited his service, he had no further need for a musket.  Not as though anyone was threatening to invade England.  By then, Europe was mostly stable, relative to fighting between neighboring countries.  When fighting did break out, it was conducted by professional armies.  

Wrapping that thought, I would suggest that the length of time and circumstances in which a country gained their independence represent significant factors in their views toward guns and gun ownership.  The US had to fight for its independence from another country less than 250 years ago in a war waged by everyman soldiers.  I'll contrast that with two other random countries.  France's independence came after that of the US, but they fought themselves, which doesn't count.  The country hadn't been under another country's rule for centuries by then.  Because it's been highlighted as having one of the lowest rates of gun violence, I'll pick on Iceland.  Their actual independence took place in the 19th century, so not that long ago.  However, it didn't involve any bloodshed; they essentially just informed Denmark 'you're not the boss of us anymore'.  How stable the country is overall also plays a role, with gun violence inversely proportional to the amount of internal strife (i.e. most of Central America).

Finally, I don't think it's possible to overstate the importance of system of government on a country's views toward gun ownership.  Until WWI, every country in Europe was run by a monarch, mostly all from the same German family (hence the stability).  And monarchs aren't terribly fond of the general populous owning weapons that could be used to overthrow them.  The same can be said for dictators.  In any case, living in monarchies, Europe had been accustomed to not having guns for centuries.  That makes understanding America's gun culture baffling for those who live there.  

Returning to America, once freedom had been won, it was time to explore the rest of our great land.  Those pioneers and explorers carried guns to hunt for food as well as defend themselves from bears and the like.  They also carried for another reason that continues to echo today.  There's not much law enforcement present when there isn't a state, much less a town to elect a sheriff.  In other words, you were left to your own devices to defend yourself against those who may wish to do you harm, so a gun  could come in quite handy. 

Guns in Popular Culture

That segues perfectly into popular culture and the theme of rugged individualism that's echoed for a couple of centuries now.  In American pop culture, when someone is murdered or grievously wronged, the hero that brings justice to the bad guy(s) is rarely law enforcement, or at least not typical law enforcement.  In many cases, American pop culture portrays law enforcement as incapable, lacking latitude to enforce the law, or even corrupt.  Another set of random examples.  John Rambo had to defend himself from corrupt law enforcement in the first movie, then, still shunned by the establishment, goes back to Vietnam and rescues POW's and returns a hero.  Who doled out justice when they killed his dog?  John Wick, of course.  The only time when law enforcement is portrayed as the hero is when one member goes rogue.  Case in point - While John McClain was a cop, he was essentially a rogue cop, who had to contend not only with Hans Gruber and company trying to kill him, but the LAPD's incompetence.  He was the true hero of Nakatomi Plaza.  And that's what most American men want to see themselves as - the rugged hero who kicks ass.  And kicking ass requires a lot of firepower!  For most American wannabe's, the only elite unit they would be qualified for is Meal Team Six, but that's another story.  Contrast that with how law enforcement is portrayed in other countries' pop cultures, where they're shown as professional, capable, and bring the bad guy to justice as a team, through hard work and intellect.  At most, rules are bent, but never thrown out the window.  

Stay tuned for the final installment coming soon.