Guns

When I was twelve, I came home from the movies and loaded the .30-30.  It was a Winchester lever action rifle – the gun that won the west. There was one like it in every other house in the community where I grew up.

My friends and I had gone to see The House of Wax with Vincent Price.  He scared the daylights out of me.  I placed the gun by my bed and went to sleep thinking that if Vincent Price stuck his nose through the door I would blow it off.

I got my first gun two years earlier.  It was a .22 rifle my father bought at Sears.  A .410 shotgun followed on my next birthday, then a .20 gauge shotgun.  Only then, after years shooting under my father’s supervision, was I allowed to fire the big gun.

My father grew up on a ranch in Colorado.  He handled guns daily and approached them seriously.  He made sure I knew what I was doing, lectured me on gun safely, taught me how to take care of them, and laid down conditions for their use.  You didn’t shoot a gun in the city, for example – even a BB gun – even if that city was so small it only had one traffic light and was home to less than 5,000 people.

One of my friends, a boy I used to hunt with frequently, was more reckless.  He managed to shoot himself three times in four years.

The first time he was practicing his quick-draw. He put a .22 round through his thigh when his gun fired before he could clear the holster. The second time, he took off part of a thumb while adjusting the choke on his shotgun. The last time he was trying to shoot a tin can balanced on the toe of his boot and managed to shoot himself in the foot.

When my father heard about this, he went ballistic. He asked me how I could be dumb enough to hunt with someone with so little respect for the guns he carried.  I told him I didn’t worry about it too much because he never seemed to shoot anyone other than himself.

My father was not impressed with my logic.  He took my guns away and told me I would only get them back when I demonstrated more maturity.  In our house, gun ownership was not a right; it was a privilege.

When I was drafted, I saw a lot of people who reminded me of my hunting buddy.  They were a nightmare for our drill sergeant and a threat to the unit.  They were more interested in blowing things up than defending themselves and even less interested in fighting for their country or defending their comrades in arms.

Most of these recruits wound up with desk jobs.  If they went to ‘Nam, they didn’t come back.

Nearly every member of my family – male or female – owns or has owned guns; but none of them would agree that anyone who wants a gun is entitled to have one.  Nor would they agree everyone has a right to buy any and every gun they desire.

This just seems like common sense to me and, if you can believe the polls, most people agree.  The only ones who seem to disagree are the gun manufactures and that small minority that always seems to want to be able to do whatever they want whenever they want.

Strange as it may seem, I have seen all this before. I was on Capitol Hill when the first shots were fired in the great tobacco war.  Senator Frank E. Moss, my boss, led the charge, introducing the legislation that required cigarette companies post the surgeon’s general’s warning on their packages.

The cigarette companies fired back. They called the surgeon general’s report fake news, drummed up scientists supporting their views, paid for studies designed to make their case, contributed like relatives, and hired an army of lobbyists.  They found powerful allies in Members of Congress representing the tobacco producing states – but they still lost.

It has taken several decades, but the tobacco culture has changed in ways that were unimaginable when the battle began.  Gone are the days when you could lite up whenever and wherever you want without concern for  the health or well being of others.

Something similar is happening now.  As is often the case, the children are leading the way.

Victor Hugo said, “There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”  The kids are telling us that moment has arrived.  We need to listen to them, check our values, and find the courage to do what needs to be done.

If we don’t, they will.  It’s only a matter of time.