How I Ended My Lifelong Love Affair With Guns

[struggle4progress]

As a child, the author fired rounds with his father and believed owning weapons made people safer. Here's what changed his mind.
Jul 25 2012, 3:30 PM ET

... My dad was a champion marksman and gun collector, and I was a 6 year-old boy version of Saoirse Ronan's reindeer-hunting Finnish girl in last year's movie Hanna. By the time I entered fourth grade, I knew how to field strip, clean, and reassemble several types of revolvers, semi-automatic pistols and rifles. I knew wadcutters from hollow points. I knew how to ease my breath and relax my trigger pull for a better shot ...

I became an adult who felt uncomfortable in a domicile that didn't have a weapon in it. I imagined the horror stories from the NRA's magazine, The American Rifleman - stories culled from the pages of newspapers of home intruders, usually, foiled with the help of a firearm - and wished for a gun of my own. When I finally got one, at 20, I was able to sleep soundly. When I heard creaks or strange noises in the Chicago house that I rented with a handful of roommates, I wasn't afraid. I felt empowered and in control ...

Several years ago, my then-girlfriend and I were mugged on the street by an assailant with a gun one block away from a local police station and two blocks away from my home. Despite having only $10 to give him, he graciously opted not to shoot us with the black 9mm he was brandishing in our faces. He was never caught. Conceal-and-carry proponents would have you believe that a secreted snubnose would have changed that outcome. That blithe action-movie attitude ignores the fact that I'd have spent the rest of my life haunted by the memory of the stranger I'd killed over $10 ...

There are obvious reasons that firearms in the hands of civilians make less and less sense: denser populations; higher powered weaponry; ever-looser regulation that prevents weapons from being effectively tracked from owner to owner, better enabling sales to criminals. But just as important is the dissolution of the social mores that once corralled the behavior of civilian gun-owners: the knowledge of one's neighbors; a sense of participation in a community; respect for others, even if their political views didn't align with your own ...

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/07/how-i-ended-my-lifelong-love-affair-with-guns/260327/

[PavePusher]

1. "You don't shoot paper targets or hunt with an AK-47 or AR-15 with a drum magazine."

Well, yes, you do, actually. Edit: Oops, I mean the paper targets. Hunting, no. Duh.

What a rubbish article.

[ellisonz]

2. Who are these sensible people shooting paper targets with an assault rifle and a drum magazine? n/t

[ileus]

6. Anyone at the range with an AR and a drum mag.

Or on private property enjoying these items as they're intended.

[ellisonz]

7. What is their intention?

Other than to kill a lot of people without having to change magazines.

[gejohnston]

8. punch a lot of paper

without having to change magazines.

[PavePusher]

10. Please stop insinuating that lots of lawful, peaceful people are contemplating commiting crimes.

Do that shit somewhere else.

[ellisonz]

11. Because it's just so much fun to have to not reload

Fuck the NRA

[Clames]

14. It can be convenient to not have to do it as often.

Brady Campaign

[ellisonz]

16. Glad to hear your convenience...

...is worth lives.

[Clames]

19. Glad to hear you are glad to hear...

...

[Hoyt]

26. Contemplating, or practicing to shoot people with it? Not a lot of difference.

Still a questionable "sport/hobby."

[ileus]

18. Shoot 100 times without reloading?

[Trunk Monkey]

3. the memory of the stranger I'd killed over $10 ...

First, you're not trying to kill the stranger you are defending yourself.

Second it's not about the 10 bucks, it's about the fact that by pointing a firearm at me (and God forbid my wife) he has presented a credible threat of deadly force and I have every right in the world to act as if he intends to carry his implicit threat out.

Finally if the mugger dies as a result of his choice to threaten me with deadly force that's a risk he chose to take.

[alabama_for_obama]

5. well said.

I don't understand why this concept is so hard for people to understand. A person threatens you, you should take it seriously.

[Hoyt]

27. I would take it seriously. Just don't think one needs a gun in their pants or strapped to their leg.

Last edited Tue Jul 31, 2012, 09:49 AM - Edit history (1)

[truebrit71]

28. Plus the attacker didn't seem to have the same problem threatening to kill THEM for $10...

...

[MercutioATC]

4. It's every person's right in the U.S. NOT to own a gun.

However, the author's contention that a breakdown of yesteryear's standards of community and social responsibility make private gun ownership unsustainable are not logical. Those very people who are the least connected to the community will be those who will have guns, legal or not. It will be the people that we DON'T have to worry about who will be unarmed...and unable to protect themselves if they so choose.

[Atypical Liberal]

9. I don't understand this reverse compassion.

Several years ago, my then-girlfriend and I were mugged on the street by an assailant with a gun one block away from a local police station and two blocks away from my home. Despite having only $10 to give him, he graciously opted not to shoot us with the black 9mm he was brandishing in our faces. He was never caught. Conceal-and-carry proponents would have you believe that a secreted snubnose would have changed that outcome.

It very well might have. There are countless stories every year of armed victims successfully defending themselves from armed criminals. Maybe it would not have made any difference at all. Maybe it would have gotten them both killed.

But we'll never know. We'll never know, because the victims never had any other choices but to comply. They are simply lucky that compliance paid off.

That blithe action-movie attitude ignores the fact that I'd have spent the rest of my life haunted by the memory of the stranger I'd killed over $10 ...

I find this logic baffling. Why on Earth would you shed a tear over killing a stranger over ten dollars when that stranger was perfectly willing to kill two people for ten dollars?!?!

Clearly the criminal did not value your lives as more than $5 a piece.

Furthermore, if the criminal finds his own life worth only ten dollars to risk it on a robbery, hey, who am I to argue with his assessment of his own worth?

[ManiacJoe]

15. Well said.

[rDigital]

23. Couldn't have said it better

myself.

[GreenStormCloud]

12. I respect his right to make that choice for himself.

However, he does not appear to respect my right to make the opposite choice for myself. He wants to push his choice down my throat. Such an attempt by him will be met with resistance.

[Marinedem]

13. Yeah, pretty much.

My thoughts exactly.

[slackmaster]

17. I wonder how many other people that street thug has robbed since then

And if he's murdered anyone yet.

[Remmah2]

21. Probably sold his gun at the last buyback. nt

nt

[HALO141]

22. I wish they' have those in my neck of the woods.

Sounds like a good place to pick up some stuff CHEAP.

[HALO141]

20. I support the author's right to make his own decision

regarding his personal safety and that of his wife.

I do, of course,demand the same in return.

[rDigital]

24. I'm Pro-Choice

especially when it comes to personal protection.

[aikoaiko]

25. This is why the right to keep and bear arms is a civil liberty.

People should be free to engage in the activity or not.

Apparently, the author still has his daddy's guns. Nice fuckin hypocrite he is.

And apparently his ended love affair (with other people's guns) is predicated on a lie -- "with this country's increasing numbers of violent murders."

This, I find, is typical of anti-gun freak.