Go Ahead and Take It
Rutger SR22P. Photo by Coati077, CC BY-SA 4.0
I have a horrible confession to make: I don’t like guns.
Like most of my hang-ups in life, I blame my mother for this. I still remember the day I opened the bedside drawer and found a small handgun inside. She saw me and absolutely freaked. “Do not EVER let me catch you touching that gun!” And since I was more terrified of my mother than I was of death, Satan, and spiders, I never touched that gun. Or any other gun for my entire life. A few years ago, when I was heavily involved in the Republican party, I started to feel inadequate for my inability to fire a weapon. I was the only one of my friends who didn’t own a gun. My coworkers all own guns. My relatives all own guns. People would attend local Republican events and open carry. Technically, we did have a gun in our house, but it was my husband’s hunting rifle, and I couldn’t have used it if mass Antifa terrorists had descended on our home.
So, I decided to take a friend up on his offer to teach me how to shoot. He took me to the firing range and allowed me to try out several of his guns. I shot the 9-millimeter once and handed it back to him. To big, too heavy, too loud. I decided that I liked the Ruger SR22 the best. I could hold it comfortably and hit the target with a halfway decent accuracy. I eventually purchased one for myself and even obtained a carry permit for it. That was about 5 years ago. It’s still sitting in the box it came in.
You see, I still just don’t like guns. I just don’t get why people think it’s fun to spend hours sitting in a deer stand waiting for a deer to come by. I don’t get why people think it’s fun to spend hours at a shooting range in a windowless room shooting at targets. And I sure as hell don’t get this whole fetish of posing brandishing your weapon like you’re Rambo. For people who grew up in the culture, guns are just a necessary tool for living. They’re necessary for self-defense. Hunting is a family bonding experience. They enjoy shooting! While we were at the range, my friend exclaimed to me “Isn’t this FUN!” And I thought, no. No, it’s not. It might be NECESSARY, but it’s not FUN. At least not to me.
And no matter how much I wanted to overcome my distaste for firearms, I just couldn’t. Deep down inside, I didn’t think I had it in me to kill another human being even if it were to save my own life. I certainly couldn’t bring myself to shoot an animal. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that I’m right, just that this is how I feel, and I tried to overcome it and I just can’t. I’m not asking anyone else to agree with me. I’m also not in favor of depriving anyone else of THEIR rights. I’m just trying to explain that we have a divide on the issue of guns that’s not going to be overcome by facts and logic. People who enjoy hunting and shooting are never going to agree to give up their firearms. And Pacifists are never going to agree to keep guns in their homes, even for self-defense.
So, why did I buy a gun in the first place? Fear. Ironically, I had a run it with one of my fellow Republicans at meeting and was warned by several people that the guy was actually dangerous. He had a problem with women and had been arrested for stalking more than once. I was terrified that he would target me next and that he had my home address. But after I calmed down, I realize that I just wasn’t prepared to carry a gun every time I took out the recycling. No matter what the state of Georgia thought, I was not properly trained to be carrying in public. I’ve had health issues and other life problems that have prevented me from going back to the range. So, I felt that the gun was best left in its box.
And that’s where it’s going to stay.
Honestly, and I say this as someone who owns a number of guns, and does enjoy shooting, if you don’t, and you aren’t getting trained, and you aren’t practicing with it, sell it.
Even if it’s in a safe, just sell it.
Don’t keep something in your house that you find dreadful.Report
It’s not bothering me. I don’t have kids so nobody else is going to get ahold of it. It doesn’t give me a sense of security. I live in a very safe neighborhood. And I might change my mind in the future. And one other reason I purchased it was that I fell for the whole “Obama is coming for your guns!” BS and was afraid if I didn’t buy one while I had the chance, I might not in the future.Report
Well, then as long as it’s in a safe… That’s the only real concern I have for little use firearms, that if they aren’t in a safe, they can disappear and you might not realize it for a very long time.Report
“I fell for the whole “Obama is coming for your guns!” BS ”
The NRA is an excellent lobby for gun manufacturers.
Properly maintained guns last generations, and the change in gun-owning households, the reduction of hunters, and the smaller generation size has led to concentration of gun ownership. My father-in-law has been a gun owner for 57 of his 70 years. He owns a small armory (two large gun safes and he’s considering a third, and this is despite trying to actively give away guns).
Of those he has purchased three. A rifle, purchased for him when he was 13 by his father. A shotgun back in the early 70s as a gift to himself (it is a very nice shotgun), and a handgun he bought for his wife when she expressed interest in learning to shoot back in the 90s. The rest — 95% or more of his collection — was through inheritance.
As far as the gun manufactures are concerned, he might as well not be a gun owner. 3 guns over almost 60 years? he’s bought more HOUSES than that. Actually he’s probably worse than a non-owner to their bottom line — he actively tries to give away guns. My nephew is the only hunter of his generation — his rifle and shotgun weren’t purchased, they were gifted from my father-in-law’s collection. There’s two gun sales that never happened.
When he passes, that same nephew will get virtually every gun (two are earmarked for someone else), and that nephew’s grandfather on the other side of the family is almost certain to leave him several guns as well. In all likelihood, my nephew will never purchase a gun in his life — the gun safe industry will probably love him.
So how do you sell a man like my father-in-law a gun? or my nephew, when he’s older? Well, barring some massive sea change in guns that make them both decide to upgrade to some new cool model (hasn’t happened in a century, don’t think they want wifi-enabled guns or rail guns or whatever for hunting), you have to make them thing their current armories aren’t sufficient. You have to terrify them.
Make them thing deer rifles and shotguns and the occasional handgun aren’t enough, that they’re need something with more stopping power for all the “rapists and thugs” that will certainly invade their quiet neighborhoods. A gun for every room, a gun for every wall, with all the accessories so you don’t miss those thugs when they certainly will attack.
Democrats coming for your guns is like a yearly Christmas event for gun makers. They make so much money selling people guns they don’t need — or even, in your case, actually want.
Although i got to ask: If Obama was really coming for your guns, what…what did you think would happen? Did you interpret “coming for your guns” to mean “nobody can sell them”? Or was there some belief that like if you had a brand new gun, the jackbooted federal thugs would be like “Ah nah, she’s got last year’s model. I ain’t paid enough to tangle with that”?Report
You make the most EXCELLENT points! It’s amazing how much my head has cleared since I quit watching Fox news. It’s like all those people rushing to purchase copies of Dr. Seuss books that they NEVER EVEN HEAR OF until the publisher decided not to make any more copies. Then they absolutely HAD to have it to – I don’t know? Own the libs?
What I really thought at the time was that I might not be able to buy a gun in the future. In retrospect, that’s ludicrous. You’re nephew’s great grandchildren will still be able to buy guns. You are spot on about the “liberals are coming for your guns!” slogan. I think the gun manufacturers probably have liberal politicians on the payroll. “Sales are down. Better get AOC talking about gun control again!”
And you’re also absolutely correct about the stopping power argument. Many of my gun friends were apoplectic that I only purchased a 22. Why, I’ll never be able to kill anyone with THAT! (Kinda my point. I really don’t want to kill anyone. Hoping I’ll never even have to point it at anyone. But sure. If I’m attacked in the middle of the night by 3 intended rapists, I won’t be able to waste them all without reloading.) But I just figured out that I was better off purchasing a gun I was comfortable with, would want to take to the range, and could accurately shoot someone that was an actual threat within 20 feet of me than with a big loud gun I was scared to fire.Report
Caliber wars are stupid. You shoot what you are comfortable shooting. You hear stories about some violent tweaker shrugging off multiple rounds from a .45, but as with all such things, they make for a good story because it’s abnormal. And it’s almost always a police interaction (because police are more likely to encounter a violent tweaker that other people).
Most people will see the gun and clear out, or they’ll turn tale after the first shot, or the first hit. They aren’t gonna be like, “Oh, man, that was just a .22, I feel fine, I’ll keep letting this lady plug away at me.”Report
Caliber wars are stupid.
The mating call of the guy who shoots .45!Report
The custom hand-load people piss me off more. As I youth I pulled targets for long-range rifle competitions at an outdoor range. All of us pullers were behind a huge earth berm. One day the guy shooting at my target had grossly overloaded his rounds, thinking he would get a faster flatter trajectory. Instead, one of them tumbled, flew some sort of bizarre arc, and hit the steel support about a foot above my head.Report
Yikes! That’ll make you check your underwear.Report
I was young enough everything squeezed shut rather than leaking. While I was getting up from belly-down on the walkway, I heard the pit boss on his phone, saying “Whoever is in position #4 is done for the day, the season, and if I have anything to say about it, forever.”
In fairness, I pulled targets for a defending national champion a couple of weeks later, where the problem was that I had to keep replacing paper because he put every single shot through about a 3″ circle, at 400 yards, and after six rounds there wasn’t enough left to put the damned marker in the hole.
I got to meet the champion later. He told me well done, then said that he had heard I pulled for so-and-so two weeks earlier and he was really sorry about that.Report
Bless the Range Safety Officer!Report
A friend of my father’s owns multiple guns for “self-defense”. Mind you, he lives in an incredible sedate area that has never even see a crime wave. The most horrible crime he’s ever been victim to was someone keyed his car once, and I think some kid once knocked over his mailbox.
When he retired he suddenly started to get more and more paranoid, and it’s worsened over the last 10 to 15 years. He not only carries concealed (and god, can he complain up a storm about restaurants that don’t let him carry inside), he carries two. So he won’t get caught reloading. I kid you not.
One thing pretty much everyone who knows him believes is that it’s because when he retired, he and his wife left Fox News on 24/7 as background noise.
Fox News is particularly egregious, but it’s the whole cable news concept really. God knows my family had an active intervention (if not obviously one) with my grandparents. We convinced them to only watch the news from 4:00 to 5:00 and not leave it on cable news all day. Their stress levels plummeted.
You can’t have people spending all that time chewing over the same thing over and over, speculating and arguing as they wait for actual events worth covering (or answers or new information) without making people feel something urgent and earth-shaking is happening. It’s a drumbeat of news — and because they want eyeballs, it’s all couched as “can’t miss/breaking/urgent” and often terrifying news.Report
The ‘feds are coming to take your guns’ is mostly silly but plenty of states are more than willing to legislate them away in a death by a thousand cuts kind of way. That or erect barriers to ownership of no plausible relationship to crime or safety.Report
Name one.
I’d like to move there.Report
Well we have some houses for sale in my neighborhood. If you buy one let me know, we can have beers and yell at each other on my deck.Report
You don’t have to move, CA does it regularly.
The list of prohibited firearms.
Other CA Gun LawsReport
And yet…I was able to walk into a gun store and buy a rifle for my son’s birthday with less effort than buying a car.
I’m not clear on this whole “legislating away guns” thing.Report
I have a friend who purchased the same gun I did at around the same time at the urging of the same mutual friend for pretty much the same reasons. And his is still sitting in the box also. A few weeks ago, I gave him a Roku as a gift. His wife is so thankful because it’s given him all these great shows to watch and gotten him off Fox News for a while.Report
Seconding Oscar, if you don’t like it get rid of it! And more importantly don’t bend to pressure from other people, social or cultural. No one should make you feel bad about your personal decision-making on matters like this. It’s no one else’s business.Report
I think the “gun culture” framing might be mistaken. Maybe those who grew up around guns are less likely to be scared, but I’ve known plenty of them who just never had an interest. I’ve also known people who took to guns as a hobby or an ideological statement who (as far as I can tell) never had guns in their upbringing.
Hunting, plinking, personal protection, and ideological/survival thinking are, I think, sufficiently different motivations that there probably isn’t a “gun culture” per se.Report
My household never had guns, I got the target shooting bug in the military.
And despite that, I’ve never wanted a semi-auto other than a handgun.
Like, I’m looking at a Henry lever action with a box mag and thinking that would be fun.Report
I’m similar in that my mom would never allow them in the house while me and my brothers were kids but I did a good bit of shooting with my uncle and grandfather. The only semi-auto I had was my Marlin 60 up until the state made me feel like I had to own some other stuff on principle, which of course I’ve learned to handle. But for those laws though the composition of my safe would probably be quite different.Report
I did some .22 plinking in the boy scouts, but yeah, aside from that I never handled a firearm before the Navy. In basic, we all shot a .22 pistol, but when I got assigned to ACU-5 and we were spinning up for deployment, the Marines we were deploying with took it upon themselves to make sure we wouldn’t be completely useless in a firefight, and dragged us all to the range.Report
The Long Ranger?Report
Yep, that’s the one. I have a Marlin in 30-30, so I was thinking maybe a .243 Win.
I enjoy lever and pump action more than bolt. But I also take my time shooting, so semi-auto rifles don’t much interest me.Report
Any experience with the .45-70?Report
Nope, never shot that caliber through anything.
I’ve got my 30-30, an old Mosin that shoots the punishing 7.62x54R, & two 12 gauges. I’d like a .22 plinker for the kid, and the Long Ranger.
Although given the price and scarcity of a lot of ammo these days, I’m not eager to add another money pit to the safe.Report
No. Way.
Love the box mag… only thing I’m not wild about with my Marlin is the tube. I think I’ll join you with the .243Report
Yep. I get annoyed at how I have to use round nose ammo in the tube mag. Box mag solves that issue.Report
Yea it sucks, the only ammo I can find that doesn’t consistently jam on mine is CCi. Which blows because it’s otherwise such an awesome plinker and a great learning rifle for my son when the time comes.Report
I’ve got a Bersa Thunder that has expensive tastes as well. I still practice with it using cheap ammo (and thus get to practice clearing jams all the time), but I have a box of the expensive stuff it loves should I feel the need to carry it.
Thanks to Covid, I haven’t carried in a very long time.Report
I was gonna link you to some 30/30 specially designed point ammo I used last Deer season… but dang… it seems America is plumb out of ammo.
$1.00/round for 9mm holy shit.Report
I’ve seen point ammo that has a small rubber tip specifically for tube mags, is that what you are thinking of?
And yeah, the cost of ammo is nuts.Report
Plus I love the external hammer… all my firearms have external hammers… I assume there’s safety plus half-cock? Have you seen the mechanics up close? Doesn’t matter… box mag probably trumps.Report
This is one of the reasons with handguns I believe Sig Sauer>Glock.Report
Here’s where I learned about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsCO0XV5rwAReport
Dummy me, I didn’t even list those who get exposed to firearms via their professions. Or the history / reenactor crowd.Report
Yes, please. Either learn how to use it and keep up your skills or sell it. Otherwise, it will give you a false sense of security and may do more harm than good if you do try to use it or your kids get at it. And I say this as someone who grew up around guns and owns some.Report