ArfinGreebly
Moderator Emeritus
Many of us grew up with guns. Many of us grew up shooting from an early age. Many of us find guns to be a natural extension of their lives, as common a tool as a hammer and saw.
Some of us here, however either didn't grow up with guns, or spent so many years away from them that they forgot they mattered or eve, in some cases, developed some kind of distaste for guns, and only later woke up to the usefulness or even necessity of firearms.
Today I'm addressing those people who haven't always "been into" guns, or who have a history of disliking, being frightened of, or simply being disinterested in them, and who at length finally decided for themselves that guns are, after all, a good idea.
And, since I brought it up, I suppose it's only fair that I relate my own story.
I was born back East, spent a few years in the Midwest and deep South, and wound up living in northern California (Sierra Nevada foothills) from the time I was eight until after I graduated from high school.
I grew up around guns, not in my own home, but in the community. Most of my friends hunted. We had lunch room arguments about whether the .30-30 was still a good deer cartridge; given that the .30-06 kicked harder -- which had to mean it had more power -- the value of a hunting cartridge being directly proportional to how much it hurt to shoot.
I owned pellet guns on and off from the time I was 12 until I left home. Dad didn't hunt, didn't own a gun, and until a couple of years before he passed (at 91), I didn't have any idea he even had any interest in them. The subject just, somehow, never came up. If I had brought it up, I would have learned that he preferred the 1941 Johnson over the Garand and M1 Carbine. I would have learned that he was familiar with, and had trained with, the 1911 pistol. Somehow, though, that conversation never happened while I was growing up, and in communities where firearms were pretty much taken for granted.
Not long after graduating, and working for a year at various things, I joined the Air Force. It was my way of dodging the draft. I had no desire to go to SE Asia; people I knew had gone and failed to come back. I got lucky and drew a UK/EU assignment. During my time in the USAF, I qualified "expert" with the AR-15 (no, they wouldn't let us shoot the actual M-16 in training). Pretty much all of us who'd had any kind of shooting background at all -- even pellet guns -- did well. I mean, how do you miss a target that size?
Four years went by pretty quickly. When it was done, I signed up for a volunteer gig and spent ten years doing that, mostly in EU.
When I returned, I had cross-trained myself into a geek career, and was more interested in finding a wife and settling down than pretty much anything else. Guns? Yeah, I knew what they were, but I had already done my bit, and guns were now somebody else's job. They held no real importance for me. Oh, sure, it would be nice to go target shooting, but I had more important things on which to spend my money.
And so, the next twenty-odd years went by, and my occasional encounters with "gun people" were limited to a couple of hunters (who invited me out, but I didn't go), a dentist who carried one for self protection (after his wife, also a dentist, was murdered one night after work), and a couple of mostly normal guys who had more enthusiasm for their guns than I felt was appropriate. I mean really, man, we have cops for that.
I was fifty-three years old when we finally moved our family into an area similar to the one in which I grew up -- Sierra foothills again, only on the other side of the mountain. Once again I found myself in an "outdoorsy" community, where guns were commonplace, hunting was routine, and shooting sports were well supported.
My wife bought me a Ruger 10/22 carbine for Father's Day the next year, and I started to learn to shoot again. I didn't have a lot of free time, and certainly not a lot of free cash -- ammo don't grow on trees, y'know -- but I got out now and then to practice.
And then came the eye opener.
A large "spontaneous" march, hundreds of angry "youths" bearing a huge national flag -- not ours -- chanting slogans in a language I don't speak, right past our front door. And the police? Elsewhere. And, I was to later learn, actually instructed to be elsewhere.
All the little hairs on my neck and arms stood and saluted. Visions of 1992 in LA. Korean shopkeepers defending what little they had with whatever they kept in the back room or under their counters. And the police? Elsewhere. Instructed to be elsewhere. Those guys were on their own.
I was on my own. And I was totally not equipped to deal with anything like that or, as it happened, with any of the other things that "happen" to people.
Over the next few months I did a whole lot of research. I found, as so many have, the on-line gun communities. There was a place called The Firing Line, and that led me to LawDog (which see), and to Kathy Jackson (pax), and so to The High Road. I stayed up reading until the early hours. I absorbed history, as it had never been taught to me in school. I actually took the time to familiarize myself with the Constitution and BoR . . . how had I missed all that in school?
It was like I'd been in some kind of black-out zone for decades. What the hell? How do they not teach people that the defense of their persons and families is their own job? How do they not teach people that the police do NOT have a duty to protect them? I mean, hey, "protect and serve," right? It's printed on every cop car out there, and yet it turns out that's not actually a contract? Holy crap.
And then came the histories of disarmed nations and the insane levels of carnage that ensued therefrom. And then came the statistics. Oh, my, everybody with an agenda seemed to have a stack of stats supporting their argument. So I had to dig through those to figure out who was lying.
Hell, I'd always taken Brady at face value. What? They lied? OMG!
And then I learned about people like Suzanna Gratia-Hupp, learned about gun-free zones, learned about Chicago, New York, and DC. I became acquainted with the techniques used by politicians to stampede populations into accepting gun bans. England. Australia. Australia?? Holy crap. And years later it turns out that the destruction of all those guns was worse than pointless, and tens of thousands of people who now regret ever allowing it to happen can't get it reversed. Canada, and the hugely expensive and utterly ineffective gun registry they implemented there.
And eventually, in late 2006, I signed up at a couple of the gun boards myself.
I still don't get a lot of time to shoot or a lot of spare cash for ammo, but in the last few years I've taken the trouble to introduce all my (now grown) kids to shooting. My son is a better pistol shot than I am, my youngest daughter is better with a carbine.
Among my lifetime regrets is that I simply accepted what came to me from government and through the media as correct. Also that I never found the intellectual curiosity to question what I was hearing, or to study current events any deeper than "film at eleven."
Today, my wife and I are a research team. That's a hell of a rabbit hole, and unless you're prepared to lose a lot of sleep, you don't want to know how much you've been lied to, by all the people you're supposed to trust.
I remember finally "getting" that the Second Amendment wasn't about "legitimate hunting purposes" or even about self defense. I remember finally grasping that almost everything I knew about the Founders was heavily redacted.
But you know what's good about ignorance?
It can be fixed.
Provided you get to the books before they've been burned.
Some of us here, however either didn't grow up with guns, or spent so many years away from them that they forgot they mattered or eve, in some cases, developed some kind of distaste for guns, and only later woke up to the usefulness or even necessity of firearms.
Today I'm addressing those people who haven't always "been into" guns, or who have a history of disliking, being frightened of, or simply being disinterested in them, and who at length finally decided for themselves that guns are, after all, a good idea.
And, since I brought it up, I suppose it's only fair that I relate my own story.
I was born back East, spent a few years in the Midwest and deep South, and wound up living in northern California (Sierra Nevada foothills) from the time I was eight until after I graduated from high school.
I grew up around guns, not in my own home, but in the community. Most of my friends hunted. We had lunch room arguments about whether the .30-30 was still a good deer cartridge; given that the .30-06 kicked harder -- which had to mean it had more power -- the value of a hunting cartridge being directly proportional to how much it hurt to shoot.
I owned pellet guns on and off from the time I was 12 until I left home. Dad didn't hunt, didn't own a gun, and until a couple of years before he passed (at 91), I didn't have any idea he even had any interest in them. The subject just, somehow, never came up. If I had brought it up, I would have learned that he preferred the 1941 Johnson over the Garand and M1 Carbine. I would have learned that he was familiar with, and had trained with, the 1911 pistol. Somehow, though, that conversation never happened while I was growing up, and in communities where firearms were pretty much taken for granted.
Not long after graduating, and working for a year at various things, I joined the Air Force. It was my way of dodging the draft. I had no desire to go to SE Asia; people I knew had gone and failed to come back. I got lucky and drew a UK/EU assignment. During my time in the USAF, I qualified "expert" with the AR-15 (no, they wouldn't let us shoot the actual M-16 in training). Pretty much all of us who'd had any kind of shooting background at all -- even pellet guns -- did well. I mean, how do you miss a target that size?
Four years went by pretty quickly. When it was done, I signed up for a volunteer gig and spent ten years doing that, mostly in EU.
When I returned, I had cross-trained myself into a geek career, and was more interested in finding a wife and settling down than pretty much anything else. Guns? Yeah, I knew what they were, but I had already done my bit, and guns were now somebody else's job. They held no real importance for me. Oh, sure, it would be nice to go target shooting, but I had more important things on which to spend my money.
And so, the next twenty-odd years went by, and my occasional encounters with "gun people" were limited to a couple of hunters (who invited me out, but I didn't go), a dentist who carried one for self protection (after his wife, also a dentist, was murdered one night after work), and a couple of mostly normal guys who had more enthusiasm for their guns than I felt was appropriate. I mean really, man, we have cops for that.
I was fifty-three years old when we finally moved our family into an area similar to the one in which I grew up -- Sierra foothills again, only on the other side of the mountain. Once again I found myself in an "outdoorsy" community, where guns were commonplace, hunting was routine, and shooting sports were well supported.
My wife bought me a Ruger 10/22 carbine for Father's Day the next year, and I started to learn to shoot again. I didn't have a lot of free time, and certainly not a lot of free cash -- ammo don't grow on trees, y'know -- but I got out now and then to practice.
And then came the eye opener.
A large "spontaneous" march, hundreds of angry "youths" bearing a huge national flag -- not ours -- chanting slogans in a language I don't speak, right past our front door. And the police? Elsewhere. And, I was to later learn, actually instructed to be elsewhere.
All the little hairs on my neck and arms stood and saluted. Visions of 1992 in LA. Korean shopkeepers defending what little they had with whatever they kept in the back room or under their counters. And the police? Elsewhere. Instructed to be elsewhere. Those guys were on their own.
I was on my own. And I was totally not equipped to deal with anything like that or, as it happened, with any of the other things that "happen" to people.
Over the next few months I did a whole lot of research. I found, as so many have, the on-line gun communities. There was a place called The Firing Line, and that led me to LawDog (which see), and to Kathy Jackson (pax), and so to The High Road. I stayed up reading until the early hours. I absorbed history, as it had never been taught to me in school. I actually took the time to familiarize myself with the Constitution and BoR . . . how had I missed all that in school?
It was like I'd been in some kind of black-out zone for decades. What the hell? How do they not teach people that the defense of their persons and families is their own job? How do they not teach people that the police do NOT have a duty to protect them? I mean, hey, "protect and serve," right? It's printed on every cop car out there, and yet it turns out that's not actually a contract? Holy crap.
And then came the histories of disarmed nations and the insane levels of carnage that ensued therefrom. And then came the statistics. Oh, my, everybody with an agenda seemed to have a stack of stats supporting their argument. So I had to dig through those to figure out who was lying.
Hell, I'd always taken Brady at face value. What? They lied? OMG!
And then I learned about people like Suzanna Gratia-Hupp, learned about gun-free zones, learned about Chicago, New York, and DC. I became acquainted with the techniques used by politicians to stampede populations into accepting gun bans. England. Australia. Australia?? Holy crap. And years later it turns out that the destruction of all those guns was worse than pointless, and tens of thousands of people who now regret ever allowing it to happen can't get it reversed. Canada, and the hugely expensive and utterly ineffective gun registry they implemented there.
And eventually, in late 2006, I signed up at a couple of the gun boards myself.
I still don't get a lot of time to shoot or a lot of spare cash for ammo, but in the last few years I've taken the trouble to introduce all my (now grown) kids to shooting. My son is a better pistol shot than I am, my youngest daughter is better with a carbine.
Among my lifetime regrets is that I simply accepted what came to me from government and through the media as correct. Also that I never found the intellectual curiosity to question what I was hearing, or to study current events any deeper than "film at eleven."
Today, my wife and I are a research team. That's a hell of a rabbit hole, and unless you're prepared to lose a lot of sleep, you don't want to know how much you've been lied to, by all the people you're supposed to trust.
I remember finally "getting" that the Second Amendment wasn't about "legitimate hunting purposes" or even about self defense. I remember finally grasping that almost everything I knew about the Founders was heavily redacted.
But you know what's good about ignorance?
It can be fixed.
Provided you get to the books before they've been burned.
