[lit-ideas] Re: Mark Steyn on Gun Control
- From: "Lawrence Helm"<lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 04:53:18 +0000
Interesting anecdote about your friend. I've never known anyone quite like
that. I've know a few people who were target shooters, but no one who just
wanted to shoot guns to break things.
In my own case, I was the best shot in my boot-camp platoon. After I got back
from Korea I served as a rifle instructor at Camp Pendleton. I believe that
rifle and pistols are tools. Tools are no better or worse than the person
using them. You are surprised that your friend feels a need of a gun. I am
surprised that someone adept in the use of a particular tool, wouldn't have one
on hand in case he needed it. As someone once said, maybe Mark Steyn, we don't
put on our seat belts in hopes of having an accident, but if we ever have one,
we want to be strapped in. The same is true of guns: better to have it and not
need it than need it and not have it.
A lot of people have keep-sake guns. I inherited an old Over/under Ithaca when
my father died. He was a big guy who never figured he needed a gun for
self-defense, but then he got old and weak-eyed and was mugged by someone he
thought was someone he was expecting; so he got this old Ithaca and kept it
under his bed. No one knew about it until after he died. It was loaded with
magnum rounds that might have burst the barrel if he ever fired them -- but
then he couldn't see too well by that time. My son knows this story and wants
this old Ithaca when I'm gone.
There are lots of different stories, lots of different people, and lots of
different reasons for having or not having guns. This is one of the Liberties
we have in our Liberal Democracy: the freedom to make up our minds about
whether to have guns.
The sort of government that could issue a demand that all guns be confiscated
isn't one we ever envisioned having in the U.S. Militias formed here and there
when some backward red-necks thought some theories like yours might actually be
put into effect. But, ha, ha, the joke was on them, wasn't it? Our government
never dreamed of doing that. No one really believes that either political
party would actually propose such an anti-American idea. But if Militias
formed when the threat was false. What would happen here in the U.S. if the
threat became real?
Once upon a time some hairbrained theorists proposed the banning of booze.
Remember that? And don't tell me no one ever died of booze. Lots more died
and die of booze than in all your little nutcase Cho-worlds, Horatio.
Lawrence
------------Original Message------------
From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, Apr-23-2007 9:25 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Mark Steyn on Gun Control
This is futile, but much too fun to quit just yet.
Lawrence argues that if current gun laws were adhered to (i.e., if only the
"bad guys" would obey the law) such events as Virginia Tech and the 34 other U.
S. school shootings in the last 11 years wouldn't have happened. He asserts
further that if laws haven't been adhered to so far, then they never will be.
And I agree with him -- unless, of course, the laws are seriously and
strenuously enforced. Will they ever be? I doubt it. Money and male
insecurity is stacked against it. Most U. S. cities outlaw fireworks, but not
firearms. Go figure.
Lawrence repeats, in so many words, the old gun lovers' saw that if guns are
outlawed then only the outlaws will have guns. So what? Outlaws will always
have the drop on you. Your gunslinger-to-the-rescue fantasies are actuarially
all but nonexistent. I suggest you forgo that vision of yourself for one more
immersed in cooperative enterprises with your fellowman.
Lawrence asks: "What sort of society wants to render itself defenseless." I
don't know. I've never met one.
Lawrence asks: "but does anyone in the U.S. really want to emulate Europe and
Canada?" Yes, Lawrence. A great many of us do will all our hearts and souls.
In a final, futile gesture, let me close by telling Lawrence that I grew up and
have spent 90% of my life in a gun loving environment. Gun loving doesn't come
as a surprise to me or cause any urgent consternation. My closest male friend
whom I've known for 42 years is a gun nut. On occasion, I've gone out into the
country with him to shoot beer bottles with his 44. It's a very loud pistol
with a lot of kick. I've never found it fun, but I've always found his
fascination with guns very funny. He owns several pistols -- no automatic ones
so far as I know, but he knows my position and probably wouldn't share them
with me. He's a very bright boy, brighter than me for sure and better looking
and a much better writer than I am. On top of all that he's very wealthy --
well, his wife is.. But I feel sorry for him. His need to have guns around
him is very sad from my perspective. I don't want to psychologize where I have
absolutely no expertise, but I will anyway, guns it seems to me reassure him of
something that he's very unsure of in himself. I, of course, have my own
psyche-pacifiers, so I dast not pass judgment, I just wish he could free
himself from the need to see things burst into pieces at the crook of his
finger.
Go in Peace,
Mike Geary
Memphis
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