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Guns in America
If you read my blog, you'll
discover how I changed from a political centrist who accepted that "gun-control
is inevitable and GOOD" to a
2nd amendment advocate.
While the subject of an armed
citizenry is absolutely a subject on which intelligent people can
disagree (and often do), to me the bottom line against any gun
control scheme or law is simple: when people who have money
and don't care about the law want something, they get it. i.e. the U.S. war on
drugs, which has done nothing to stop drugs from being available to those who
have money don't care about the law.
But the difference between drug
control laws and gun control laws is:
- Recreational drugs have
virtually no positive value, and destroy many lives, so drug laws can be
said to accomplish something worthwhile by at
least keeping drugs away from people who care about the law.
- But
gun ownership does
have a proven value to society, both in self defense for individuals and as the final
balance against a government turned tyrannical (which is unthinkable now, but
who's to say what the country will be like in 30 years?).
So civilian gun ownership is
positive and highly restrictive gun control laws
have little positive value, whereas recreational drug use is a negative and
anti-drug laws at least keep a percentage of the population away from drugs.
Of course there are many more
elements to the debate, such as what kinds of limits on gun ownership are
worthwhile, as even I don't support for a total suspension of all gun laws (such
as existed in many parts of the country prior to 1934 when you could buy a
machine gun at a hardware store without even showing ID),
Read my novel and see if it
changes your mind, whatever your current position. For more details on my
views on guns, read my blog. One
of my best known posts on guns is
this one, on Christians and gun ownership.
Chapter Ten (excerpt):
I focused on the gun in
my hands, the most foreign piece of metal I’d ever touched. I flipped it over a
few times to get a feel for it. It looked robust, but rough around the edges.
Definitely not the most finely crafted mechanism I’d ever held. It was lighter
than I thought it would be.
Gary knelt beside me
and held out a shiny box magazine with a fat bullet sticking through the top. He
raised his voice louder than he should have to break the uncomfortable silence.
“You ready to load her up, brother? Ready to cut loose?”
“Yeah,” my voice was
weak. I tried again. “Hell yeah! Let’s do this thing!”
Gary showed me how to
eject the empty magazine and put the new one in. Then he took it back out and
showed me how to make the gun fire or keep it from firing. I manipulated the
slide a few times without bullets to get a feel for it. The gun fit well in my
hand, much better than the BB guns and video arcade guns I’d played with over
the years. Of course, every American boy with a TV believes he’s an expert on
guns, so it’s no wonder it felt natural.
There was no more
putting it off. Gary gave me a nod, so I slapped the magazine in place with the
heel of my hand, then pulled the top slide back and released it to put a bullet
in the chamber.
As I stood up Dad began
to slap his thighs in an impromptu drum roll and rasped. “Ladies and Gentlemen …
it’s Paully Oakley Archer.” I gave him a look, but he chuckled and slapped
harder.
My heart beat faster.
For the first time in my life I was holding a loaded gun. A gun that had killed
somebody. A gun that had saved a life. My hand shook and it was hard to keep the
sights lined up on the now tiny upper target.
“Control your
breathing,” Gary warned, “breathe out, hold your breath just a little bit, then
squeeze the trigger.”
My finger moved to the
trigger, a thin line of cold steel against my ultra sensitive skin. But I
couldn’t bring myself to pull it back. I chided myself again that this was just
a piece of hundred year old technology. But it was not technology I was
accustomed to. I steadied my hands and through force of will began to tighten my
grip.
*BANG!*
The explosion caught me
off guard. The gun jammed back into my palm and flipped up as I flinched from
the flash and noise. It took much less pull on the trigger to set it off than I
thought. When I focused on the targets again the “release” target was rocking
back and the other two were dropping down into position. Holy crap I hit it!
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