[lit-ideas] Re: Gun Control
- From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2007 09:27:55 -0700
From: "Lawrence Helm"
My conception of a "gun nut," is one that loves guns and has a huge number of them, not
someone who goes berserk when he has a gun.
For me, a "gun nut" is someone who glorifies guns, usually in reaction to feelings of
victimization. A gun nut can have only one gun, but goes around with fantasies of the day
he'll set things right.
Just having a lot of guns doesn't make one a gun nut. I know it may sound odd to people who
don't have guns, but since our family hobby was trapshooting, we had a lot of guns. Like,
really a lot. The guns were stored in a room in our house; it had racks on all four walls.
Rifles, pistols, shotguns, hunting bows, we even had a blowgun. 10-15 rifles, 30+ shotguns,
and so on.
And to us, they were just guns. We didn't love the guns. Other hobbyists have twenty
aquariums, we had lots of guns.
A friend was visiting once and her husband began asking me about handguns. I don't care much
for handguns, so I just answered a few questions. Later, she told me "Brian said you don't
know much about guns. I said to Brian: there's a difference. Andreas knows a lot about guns.
You're a gun nut." He liked to go to the woods and blast away at everything with his four
handguns and his assault weapon. We simply never did such a thing; it never would occur to
us.
Today, I don't have gun rooms. I rarely shoot. Maybe once every three years. A friend will
want to learn, so I take them to a shooting range, buy a box of bullets, rent a few guns,
and they shoot at targets. My Japanese friends are totally nuts about the experience of
shooting guns. They start off with a .22 caliber (small light gun), fire a box of 100 shots,
and then try the .38 (like a detective's gun). Then they finish with a few shots with a
.357. The Clint Eastwood "Dirty Harry" gun. This is actually a hand cannon. You must hold it
with both hands. I stand behind them to catch them. Fire two or three shots and you get a
huge blister on your hands from the recoil. The boom is quite remarkable. Hit the target?
Hardly. It's another fun thing to do when traveling in America.
Edward writes:
Nevertheless, (Cho) appears with his guns on televisions, computers and newspapers all
over the world. What an appealing image he has become to the hundreds (or thousands) of
intensely angry, completely impressionable, and possibly violent young people who might
seek to emulate this weak little nut.
Entirely right. To loners, Cho is a hero who fought back. Cho admired the Columbine killers.
The Virginia Tech massacre is close to the anniversary of Columbine. Cho planned this
carefully by preparing the "media package" (yes, "media package", to make sure the public
got the message). More victims will buy guns and start preparing their revenge. The
suicide-at-the-end is just more victimization; he was "forced by others to kill himself",
i.e., he thought he died a victim.
We will regrettably see many more Columbines. The glorification of violence by Hollywood and
the GOP, the media attention, a society that glorifies the wealthy, a society that deplores
the weak, and the easy availability of assault guns. A perfect recipe for loners with guns.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
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