I signed the waiver. My name in ink meant no turning back. I walked into foreign territory with my goggles and protective ear gear and, amid the loud blasts and shells flying at my feet, I was ready to get my hands on a trigger. Firing a gun for the first time (three guns actually) was memorable not just for the feel, but for the change of heart that led me to the shooting range.
I’m from New York. I’ve spent hours in Broadway theaters, my family pronounces soda as “so-der” and the only cowboy hat I’ve ever owned is complete with pink sparkles. I don’t carry guns. Besides the occasional glimpse of a firearm on the hip of a policeman, the only link I had to guns growing up was Hollywood. My dad and I loved watching James Bond, an agent who, I’ve recently learned, kills an average of 16 people per film. Besides seeing 007 wield his handguns, time and again I witnessed bad guys using firearms for mugging or armed theft. So, thanks to TV and film, I could only equate guns with crime and death.
After trying my own hand at a powerful firearm, I have nothing but respect for these more experienced gun owners. Firing a gun isn’t as easy as it seems on the silver screen. No one can just grab and shoot – a lot of steps have to be taken before you’re ready to pull the trigger. Each finger has to be in the right place on the gun, each stance is specific to the kind of gun you’re holding, etc.Having this new knowledge is powerful and I am more confident knowing I have the ability to stop an intruder.
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| A powerful freedom. |
My education certainly didn’t help me understand guns could be used for something other than robbing a bank or exacting revenge. I had the First amendment memorized through high school, yet found myself blanking on the obscure “right to bear arms.” This indifference continued until my senior year at Allegheny College, when a certain class suddenly forced me to think about gun culture. No, it wasn’t a political science course like American Government or US Constitution – it was English 305: Nonfiction Writing.
I remember a unique reading assignment titled, “Love Me, Love My Guns,” which our professor printed from the left wing website Salon.com. The piece, authored by Susan Straight, is introduced with this description, “A shotgun tumbled from a closet and my husband drifted from my heart.” Straight writes how her husband purchased a gun for their home without her knowing and, in one terrifying incident, the gun drops from a closet near her and her newborn baby. This accident pushes her already jittery nerves over the edge and, according to her, leads to the end of her marriage.
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| "Love Me, Love My Guns" |
Straight uses misleading language to depict guns as manipulative and decries her husband’s growing fondness of them: “I saw him fall in love with guns themselves. The seduction of the barrels and oil and wooden stocks with carving, the power of caliber.” (emphasis added.)
In addition to describing the guns themselves as evil, the author also tries to paint her “very conservative” gun-toting neighbors as reckless and trigger happy. She eventually expands her unfair characterization to include all Americans: “Here in America, the most powerful country in the world, we have the most guns of all. And we are all, almost all of us, afraid of each other.”
I now understand these statements to be ridiculous, but at first read I was a naïve college student. As such, I prepared a presentation for the class on “Love Me, Love My Guns” with my assigned group and shared what my professor wanted to hear: living in a home with guns creates a culture of fear. Had I known then what I know now, I would have provided my class with a much different analysis.
My attitude toward guns started to point in the right direction when I started reading less biased, more informative articles on the issue. Ann Coulter, one of my go-to columnists, provided some statistics on her blog I couldn’t ignore. For instance, before Coulter informed me, I didn’t know that mass murder shooting sprees which occur in “gun-free school zones” usually end more tragically than in places that are more gun-friendly. Consider these two incidents she shares with her readers: 1.“At Columbine High School, two students killed 13 people before ending the carnage themselves by committing suicide.” 2. “In 1997, a student at Pearl High School in Pearl, Miss., had already shot several people at his high school and was headed for the junior high school when assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieved a .45 pistol from his car and pointed it at the gunman's head, ending the slaughter. Two dead. ”
The statistics speak for themselves. When a good guy has a gun, as in the latter tragedy, it’s easier to stop the bad guy and ultimately results in fewer casualties.
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| Time and again, statistics show mass murder shootings end most tragically in "gun-free school zones." |
It’s been a year since my anti-gun Nonfiction Writing course and, with new friends and surroundings here in Northern Virginia, I realize American gun culture is not as foreign and frightening as I once believed.
I’m thankful to work in an office in which my female coworkers are proud gun owners. Although they wear floral skirts and high heels to the office, they unabashedly shoot AR-15s by night. Several conversations with them helped me realize guns are an important defensive tool – especially for our vulnerable sex.
My change of heart toward firearms was solidified when I held a gun for the first time just last month. Our news editor, a staunch gun rights advocate, took me and a co-worker to our first gun lesson, introducing us to our Second Amendment freedom. Yes, my initial step into the firing range was a nervous one, but once I picked up a revolver and eased back the trigger, one word kept running through my mind: empowered. The feeling only grew stronger as I tried out the surprisingly smooth AR-15 and finished by firing a few rounds from a handgun.
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| Trying out the surprisingly easy to handle AR-15 |
I had never been surrounded by so many guns in my life, yet for some reason I’d never felt so safe. The next day, reflecting on my experience, I realized that not once did it cross my mind that someone was going to turn on us and turn the range into a crime scene. All the customers were responsible and all were focused on their targets. In fact, gun owners must be some of the most responsible people out there. Their owning a gun means they are being proactive about their own protection. They are taking matters into their own hands and, because of their determination, they will be prepared if a criminal ever tries to claim their possessions or their lives. Very impressive and very smart.
After trying my own hand at a powerful firearm, I have nothing but respect for these more experienced gun owners. Firing a gun isn’t as easy as it seems on the silver screen. No one can just grab and shoot – a lot of steps have to be taken before you’re ready to pull the trigger. Each finger has to be in the right place on the gun, each stance is specific to the kind of gun you’re holding, etc.Having this new knowledge is powerful and I am more confident knowing I have the ability to stop an intruder.
Guns, I’ve come to understand, are more than Al Pacino’s malignant “little friends” or James Bond's toys. They are defensive tools that can serve as equalizers for women when confronted with criminals. Forget birth control, taking away our firearms would be the real “war on women.”
A true conservative at heart, I suppose my appreciation for the Second Amendment was inevitable, though long and coming.
My lesson? Guns are more than weapons – they’re a girl’s best friend.
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| Right on target! |