Harry Tuttle
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- Joined
- Nov 14, 2003
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After the ban
Assault weapons are stars now at the gun show, but most people just go for hunting, collecting, and protecting
BY ELIZABETH KEAR
Sit back. I want to take you to a gun show.
In the middle of our recent and spectacular October I took a bus to Waterville to check out the gun show nearest Portland. The sky was overcast and gave the remaining autumn leaves and skeletal branches a soft pallor. Wet splotches of color stuck to the road. Rolling countryside dotted here and there with cattle and horses provided a continuous panorama.
Two and a half hours later, I was standing in an enormous aluminum box, the Waterville Armory, that served as the exhibition hall for dozens of dealers of guns. And knives. And memorabilia. And much, much more.
First off, the show was organized by Mrs. Art Diprete of Diprete Promotions Inc., a New Hampshire company that puts together gun shows all over New England. I had to google to ferret out this information because Mrs. Diprete declined to give me her name, a reservation that was almost universal. Whether I told people I was doing an article or not, people could tell (that notebook’s a dead giveaway) that I was a commie, pinko, faggot, city slicker out to get them. And although people were generally polite, the majority refused to speak with me or give me their names. They did not want to be cited in a piece they feared would be a hatchet job.
But I was just curious. Recently, as you’ve probably seen in the news, Congress refused to extend a federal ban on assault weapons. Not having any particular interest in guns myself, and therefore virtually no knowledge about them, I wondered what kind of people buy assault weapons and why. And most intriguing of all, I was curious to see what can be acquired that wouldn’t have been available under the ban. To that end, I decided to investigate.
With one exception, the people at the gun show were unfailingly courteous. And the one angry response came from an assault-weapons dealer who claimed that the end of the ban had not made the world more dangerous but merely given the media "a little more running room to bash my industry, and it’s wrong!" Since he was shouting this and had any number of guns to hand, I backed away as gracefully as I could. Never piss off a guy with a gun. That’s my motto.
So I had to do some research to determine what I might have been able to buy had I passed muster with this dealer, and here, to the best of my understanding, are the kinds of weapons that are available now that the weapons ban has lapsed: "Assault weapons." What that means can be kind of foggy, though. Technically, the term "assault weapon" doesn’t apply to weapons that are automatic, i.e. those that can fire a burst of ammunition when you simply pull the trigger once. Those have been heavily regulated since the 1934 Federal Firearms Act.
"Assault weapon" was defined in the now-sunset 1994 Federal Violent Crime Control Act to be those semi-automatic (you still have to pull the trigger for each shot) and military-looking weapons that do not fall under the 1934 provisions. They can be either rifles or pistols. Many of them are named specifically in the 1994 bill (Kalishnikovs, Beretta Ar70, Colt AR-15, UZI, TEC-9), others simply meet certain pairs of criteria (pistols that can accept a silencer and weigh more than 50 ounces unloaded, rifles with a grenade launcher and a bayonet mount, etc.).
You still can’t get what you’d call a "machine gun," but you can now shoot more bullets in less time because you don’t have to reload as often. While the ban existed, companies couldn’t manufacture magazines holding more than 10 rounds — though pre-existing canisters, belts, or magazines of any size were grandfathered in so that, in fact, the ban turned out to be more symbolic than substantive. Still, you can now buy a gun that you only need to reload after, say, 50 or 100 shots, where before you’d have to buy a gun that could shoot 10, then hunt around for an old magazine that would hold more rounds.
It’s all actually fairly complicated and most people who would pronounce themselves pro-assault-weapons ban would have a hard time telling you what exactly is now available that wasn’t. Certainly, going to a gun show before and after the ban, your casual observer would be hard pressed to identify the newly available guns. A good explanation of the ban’s effect from the pro side can be found at www.bradycampaign.org; the con side can be found at www.awbansunset.com
NOT SURPRISINGLY, not everyone sells assault weapons at these shows, and not everyone wants to buy them. For one thing, newly available assault weapons in this category typically run $800 and up; $5000 for some would not be an unreasonable price to expect. In fact, I only came across one group of collectors, all in their twenties, who thought these guns were fascinating. And when I asked them what they’d use them for, they all responded that they only had target practice in mind. But clearly it was the power and mystique of these guns that appealed. Not that any of these young men anticipated going up against anything. But they could have if they’d wanted to. And that was sufficient draw.
Lots of people at the show were simply looking for guns for hunting. Still others were there looking for handguns, with the expectation of protecting themselves from intruders. And many wanted to use guns for target practice or shooting skeet, while one man, a police officer, was just scouting out weapons for work.
In addition, dealers were selling history. You could get almost anything that might pertain, even remotely, to hunting or martial history. A sheriff’s star? No problem. Antique snow shoes. Knives and ice augers. Ribbons and medals. Wonderful antique photos of hunters and lawmen. A top hat for sale. Assay equipment and swords, bridles and spurs, an old ink well and a 1970s Russian naval officer’s jacket (robin’s egg blue. If I’d had the money I’d be wearing it now).
There were books and magazines.
And the piece de resistance of the show: an antique machine gun, a Vickers dating to WW2 that rested on a tripod, used 50-calibre ammunition, and actually still functioned. Now, as I say, just because the assault weapons ban has sunset doesn’t mean you can just hand over your credit card for one of these babies and haul it off. As with all true automatic weapons, the FBI does a serious three- to six-month background check. These guns must be registered with the government and can’t be taken out of state without notifying the government first.
But for everything else, including those "assault weapons," there’s Instacheck. If you don’t have a record, you can walk away with your purchase the same day. So, for instance, you can now get a pistol that will accept a silencer, but you can only legally buy a silencer if you pass the same FBI check that applies to automatic weapons. You can get an AK-47 lookalike, but if you want an actual AK-47, you’ll have a hard time, since their manufacture for civilian use was banned in 1986. You can get an UZI, but not the kind the gangsters in the movies use unless you get a special permit from the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco. About the only thing you absolutely can’t do is manufacture or own an all-plastic gun. The NRA tried to legalize a plastic gun that would not be detected by metal detectors but so far hasn’t been able to persuade the government that its merits (undetectability) outweigh its harm (what a boon to terrorists). Stay tuned.
In addition to guns and collectibles there were targets and knives. You can shoot at your own photo of a black man holding a gun and aiming back at you. Or a woman. Or hell, a mean-looking white guy. Or you could purchase some of the most fantastic knives I’ve ever seen. In fact, the dealer who was selling knives had some of the same designs that had been used by the female Klingons in a Star Trek movie. Since these were extremely expensive and had virtually no practical use, you could also buy lapel pins of the knives, tiny exact replicas for a whole lot less money.
PEOPLE, MOSTLY YOUNG to middle-aged white men, but also a few black guys and an occasional girlfriend or child, were there in droves. Since many people at the show were looking for hunting paraphernalia, I had to give the whole concept of hunting some thought. Being a city slicker, not raised to hunt, the idea of killing Bambi had zero, truly zero, appeal. Anything with eyes that big is simply too beautiful to shoot.
On the other hand, I eat meat. I’m a carnivore to the bone (pun intended). And knowing how brutally we slaughter animals in commercial slaughter houses, I can’t help but think that if I’m going to eat meat, meat that’s been shot on the hoof has a much easier endgame than the creatures we send off to be butchered. Let’s face it. For an animal shot by a hunter, the end goes something like this: la di da di da di plunk. It’s down, and if the hunter’s a decent shot, it’s over. Not so the slaughter house, but let’s not go there. Suffice it to say that the level of fear and brutality our "civilized" method of harvesting animals inflicts on them is a lot greater than anything hunted animals usually experience when shot. The truth is, hunting to eat doesn’t pose a problem for me. But hunting for pleasure stills seems pretty weird, and any number of people casually announced that they dispatch squirrels routinely. Why? What in the world have these furry little critters done to earn such contempt? Embezzled? Rigged elections? Interfered with children?
I was not alone in my discomfort with this kind of hunt. A cop I spoke with said he’d never kill an animal. He too felt they were way too beautiful to harm. And he wasn’t unique. Any number of people I met at the show confessed a distaste for hunting. So even among gun enthusiasts, hunting does not have universal appeal.
What did have universal appeal was the desire for protection. Every person I talked to owned a gun, every one of them wanted to protect himself and his family from intruders, and not one of them had ever had an occasion to do so. No one had ever been threatened in his home. But they all felt sure that if any one of them let down his guard or relinquished his firepower, the hun would be at the door. As one dealer said, "people in the cities think the elimination of guns will eliminate crime. If you do away with the guns, only the criminals will have them." And the anticipation of that criminal horde appearing on their doorsteps keeps these people armed and prepared. More than any other motivation, people felt the prospect of a home invasion was a pre-eminent reason to go armed, and after that, they feared a government that would take their firepower away.
Repeatedly they reported that Hitler had forbidden Germany’s civilian population access to guns and one man was quick to remind me that only guns sequestered in the Warsaw ghetto enabled the Jewish population there to hold out as long as it did.
Yet no one at the show seemed able to accept the reverse side of this coin. No one seemed capable of acknowledging that the availability of guns simply increases the opportunities for their use in other ways, ways that have nothing to do with self-defense. People getting pissed off and killing each other was unavoidable one participant said, and you can’t do anything about that. And the convenience of guns doesn’t mean more killing. People would kill each other in equal numbers whether they had guns or not.
Yet logic like this actually flies in the face of one gun’s famous nickname, "the great equalizer." Greater bulk is no longer the limiting factor in a fight. Now it’s greater firepower. So a gun simply increases the pool of lethal players.
And, of course, there are the accidents. Over and over children and teenagers play with toy guns that turn out not to be toys at all. With deadly consequences. When I pointed this out to one dealer, he responded stolidly, "If they had educated the public instead of spending the millions they spent to get rid of guns, they’d be way ahead of the game."
But here’s the reality. In their world, they’re right. Few people are either ignorant or irresponsible about guns where these people come from. And though there are the occasional lapses into domestic abuse that result in a gun death, the vast majority of gun owners never go anywhere near that scene, but are, for the most part, merely decent people living their lives.
But like me, they frequently lead lives laced with a subterranean anxiety that permeates their attitudes about the world around them. Like those of us on the left, most, if not all of them, view the world as changing for the worse. And they feel the world is abandoning the standards they recall. Like Islamic Fundamentalists, these proto Christian fundamentalists have a simplistic and bucolic view of history that solves problems simply. The attackers are the Indians, so circle the wagons, boys, and pass the ammunition.
The reality of course, is that the life they remember is no more a product of history than the one to which I cling, that peaceful time when people were going to work together to make a better world and love would conquer all.
All of us, in our own ways, have become debilitated by fear, and while the right wing is holding off the deluge with guns, we on the left are hoping to head for the hills. I, for one, am offering my hand in marriage to any Canadian of any age.
So in the end it was not rage or loathing I felt for the people who sell or buy guns. What I felt most of all was an aching sense of sadness. It saddens me that as a nation, so many people feel so disempowered that we’re constantly inspired to fear our neighbors. It saddens me that we look to our families rather than our communities for security, thereby limiting our sources of support to ever smaller units. And most of all it saddens me that as a nation, with or without guns, we are continually played off against each other. This, more than anything else we do, shoots ourselves in the foot.
Elizabeth Kear can be reached at [email protected]
http://www.portlandphoenix.com/features/top/ts_multi/documents/04301746.asp
Assault weapons are stars now at the gun show, but most people just go for hunting, collecting, and protecting
BY ELIZABETH KEAR
Sit back. I want to take you to a gun show.
In the middle of our recent and spectacular October I took a bus to Waterville to check out the gun show nearest Portland. The sky was overcast and gave the remaining autumn leaves and skeletal branches a soft pallor. Wet splotches of color stuck to the road. Rolling countryside dotted here and there with cattle and horses provided a continuous panorama.
Two and a half hours later, I was standing in an enormous aluminum box, the Waterville Armory, that served as the exhibition hall for dozens of dealers of guns. And knives. And memorabilia. And much, much more.
First off, the show was organized by Mrs. Art Diprete of Diprete Promotions Inc., a New Hampshire company that puts together gun shows all over New England. I had to google to ferret out this information because Mrs. Diprete declined to give me her name, a reservation that was almost universal. Whether I told people I was doing an article or not, people could tell (that notebook’s a dead giveaway) that I was a commie, pinko, faggot, city slicker out to get them. And although people were generally polite, the majority refused to speak with me or give me their names. They did not want to be cited in a piece they feared would be a hatchet job.
But I was just curious. Recently, as you’ve probably seen in the news, Congress refused to extend a federal ban on assault weapons. Not having any particular interest in guns myself, and therefore virtually no knowledge about them, I wondered what kind of people buy assault weapons and why. And most intriguing of all, I was curious to see what can be acquired that wouldn’t have been available under the ban. To that end, I decided to investigate.
With one exception, the people at the gun show were unfailingly courteous. And the one angry response came from an assault-weapons dealer who claimed that the end of the ban had not made the world more dangerous but merely given the media "a little more running room to bash my industry, and it’s wrong!" Since he was shouting this and had any number of guns to hand, I backed away as gracefully as I could. Never piss off a guy with a gun. That’s my motto.
So I had to do some research to determine what I might have been able to buy had I passed muster with this dealer, and here, to the best of my understanding, are the kinds of weapons that are available now that the weapons ban has lapsed: "Assault weapons." What that means can be kind of foggy, though. Technically, the term "assault weapon" doesn’t apply to weapons that are automatic, i.e. those that can fire a burst of ammunition when you simply pull the trigger once. Those have been heavily regulated since the 1934 Federal Firearms Act.
"Assault weapon" was defined in the now-sunset 1994 Federal Violent Crime Control Act to be those semi-automatic (you still have to pull the trigger for each shot) and military-looking weapons that do not fall under the 1934 provisions. They can be either rifles or pistols. Many of them are named specifically in the 1994 bill (Kalishnikovs, Beretta Ar70, Colt AR-15, UZI, TEC-9), others simply meet certain pairs of criteria (pistols that can accept a silencer and weigh more than 50 ounces unloaded, rifles with a grenade launcher and a bayonet mount, etc.).
You still can’t get what you’d call a "machine gun," but you can now shoot more bullets in less time because you don’t have to reload as often. While the ban existed, companies couldn’t manufacture magazines holding more than 10 rounds — though pre-existing canisters, belts, or magazines of any size were grandfathered in so that, in fact, the ban turned out to be more symbolic than substantive. Still, you can now buy a gun that you only need to reload after, say, 50 or 100 shots, where before you’d have to buy a gun that could shoot 10, then hunt around for an old magazine that would hold more rounds.
It’s all actually fairly complicated and most people who would pronounce themselves pro-assault-weapons ban would have a hard time telling you what exactly is now available that wasn’t. Certainly, going to a gun show before and after the ban, your casual observer would be hard pressed to identify the newly available guns. A good explanation of the ban’s effect from the pro side can be found at www.bradycampaign.org; the con side can be found at www.awbansunset.com
NOT SURPRISINGLY, not everyone sells assault weapons at these shows, and not everyone wants to buy them. For one thing, newly available assault weapons in this category typically run $800 and up; $5000 for some would not be an unreasonable price to expect. In fact, I only came across one group of collectors, all in their twenties, who thought these guns were fascinating. And when I asked them what they’d use them for, they all responded that they only had target practice in mind. But clearly it was the power and mystique of these guns that appealed. Not that any of these young men anticipated going up against anything. But they could have if they’d wanted to. And that was sufficient draw.
Lots of people at the show were simply looking for guns for hunting. Still others were there looking for handguns, with the expectation of protecting themselves from intruders. And many wanted to use guns for target practice or shooting skeet, while one man, a police officer, was just scouting out weapons for work.
In addition, dealers were selling history. You could get almost anything that might pertain, even remotely, to hunting or martial history. A sheriff’s star? No problem. Antique snow shoes. Knives and ice augers. Ribbons and medals. Wonderful antique photos of hunters and lawmen. A top hat for sale. Assay equipment and swords, bridles and spurs, an old ink well and a 1970s Russian naval officer’s jacket (robin’s egg blue. If I’d had the money I’d be wearing it now).
There were books and magazines.
And the piece de resistance of the show: an antique machine gun, a Vickers dating to WW2 that rested on a tripod, used 50-calibre ammunition, and actually still functioned. Now, as I say, just because the assault weapons ban has sunset doesn’t mean you can just hand over your credit card for one of these babies and haul it off. As with all true automatic weapons, the FBI does a serious three- to six-month background check. These guns must be registered with the government and can’t be taken out of state without notifying the government first.
But for everything else, including those "assault weapons," there’s Instacheck. If you don’t have a record, you can walk away with your purchase the same day. So, for instance, you can now get a pistol that will accept a silencer, but you can only legally buy a silencer if you pass the same FBI check that applies to automatic weapons. You can get an AK-47 lookalike, but if you want an actual AK-47, you’ll have a hard time, since their manufacture for civilian use was banned in 1986. You can get an UZI, but not the kind the gangsters in the movies use unless you get a special permit from the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco. About the only thing you absolutely can’t do is manufacture or own an all-plastic gun. The NRA tried to legalize a plastic gun that would not be detected by metal detectors but so far hasn’t been able to persuade the government that its merits (undetectability) outweigh its harm (what a boon to terrorists). Stay tuned.
In addition to guns and collectibles there were targets and knives. You can shoot at your own photo of a black man holding a gun and aiming back at you. Or a woman. Or hell, a mean-looking white guy. Or you could purchase some of the most fantastic knives I’ve ever seen. In fact, the dealer who was selling knives had some of the same designs that had been used by the female Klingons in a Star Trek movie. Since these were extremely expensive and had virtually no practical use, you could also buy lapel pins of the knives, tiny exact replicas for a whole lot less money.
PEOPLE, MOSTLY YOUNG to middle-aged white men, but also a few black guys and an occasional girlfriend or child, were there in droves. Since many people at the show were looking for hunting paraphernalia, I had to give the whole concept of hunting some thought. Being a city slicker, not raised to hunt, the idea of killing Bambi had zero, truly zero, appeal. Anything with eyes that big is simply too beautiful to shoot.
On the other hand, I eat meat. I’m a carnivore to the bone (pun intended). And knowing how brutally we slaughter animals in commercial slaughter houses, I can’t help but think that if I’m going to eat meat, meat that’s been shot on the hoof has a much easier endgame than the creatures we send off to be butchered. Let’s face it. For an animal shot by a hunter, the end goes something like this: la di da di da di plunk. It’s down, and if the hunter’s a decent shot, it’s over. Not so the slaughter house, but let’s not go there. Suffice it to say that the level of fear and brutality our "civilized" method of harvesting animals inflicts on them is a lot greater than anything hunted animals usually experience when shot. The truth is, hunting to eat doesn’t pose a problem for me. But hunting for pleasure stills seems pretty weird, and any number of people casually announced that they dispatch squirrels routinely. Why? What in the world have these furry little critters done to earn such contempt? Embezzled? Rigged elections? Interfered with children?
I was not alone in my discomfort with this kind of hunt. A cop I spoke with said he’d never kill an animal. He too felt they were way too beautiful to harm. And he wasn’t unique. Any number of people I met at the show confessed a distaste for hunting. So even among gun enthusiasts, hunting does not have universal appeal.
What did have universal appeal was the desire for protection. Every person I talked to owned a gun, every one of them wanted to protect himself and his family from intruders, and not one of them had ever had an occasion to do so. No one had ever been threatened in his home. But they all felt sure that if any one of them let down his guard or relinquished his firepower, the hun would be at the door. As one dealer said, "people in the cities think the elimination of guns will eliminate crime. If you do away with the guns, only the criminals will have them." And the anticipation of that criminal horde appearing on their doorsteps keeps these people armed and prepared. More than any other motivation, people felt the prospect of a home invasion was a pre-eminent reason to go armed, and after that, they feared a government that would take their firepower away.
Repeatedly they reported that Hitler had forbidden Germany’s civilian population access to guns and one man was quick to remind me that only guns sequestered in the Warsaw ghetto enabled the Jewish population there to hold out as long as it did.
Yet no one at the show seemed able to accept the reverse side of this coin. No one seemed capable of acknowledging that the availability of guns simply increases the opportunities for their use in other ways, ways that have nothing to do with self-defense. People getting pissed off and killing each other was unavoidable one participant said, and you can’t do anything about that. And the convenience of guns doesn’t mean more killing. People would kill each other in equal numbers whether they had guns or not.
Yet logic like this actually flies in the face of one gun’s famous nickname, "the great equalizer." Greater bulk is no longer the limiting factor in a fight. Now it’s greater firepower. So a gun simply increases the pool of lethal players.
And, of course, there are the accidents. Over and over children and teenagers play with toy guns that turn out not to be toys at all. With deadly consequences. When I pointed this out to one dealer, he responded stolidly, "If they had educated the public instead of spending the millions they spent to get rid of guns, they’d be way ahead of the game."
But here’s the reality. In their world, they’re right. Few people are either ignorant or irresponsible about guns where these people come from. And though there are the occasional lapses into domestic abuse that result in a gun death, the vast majority of gun owners never go anywhere near that scene, but are, for the most part, merely decent people living their lives.
But like me, they frequently lead lives laced with a subterranean anxiety that permeates their attitudes about the world around them. Like those of us on the left, most, if not all of them, view the world as changing for the worse. And they feel the world is abandoning the standards they recall. Like Islamic Fundamentalists, these proto Christian fundamentalists have a simplistic and bucolic view of history that solves problems simply. The attackers are the Indians, so circle the wagons, boys, and pass the ammunition.
The reality of course, is that the life they remember is no more a product of history than the one to which I cling, that peaceful time when people were going to work together to make a better world and love would conquer all.
All of us, in our own ways, have become debilitated by fear, and while the right wing is holding off the deluge with guns, we on the left are hoping to head for the hills. I, for one, am offering my hand in marriage to any Canadian of any age.
So in the end it was not rage or loathing I felt for the people who sell or buy guns. What I felt most of all was an aching sense of sadness. It saddens me that as a nation, so many people feel so disempowered that we’re constantly inspired to fear our neighbors. It saddens me that we look to our families rather than our communities for security, thereby limiting our sources of support to ever smaller units. And most of all it saddens me that as a nation, with or without guns, we are continually played off against each other. This, more than anything else we do, shoots ourselves in the foot.
Elizabeth Kear can be reached at [email protected]
http://www.portlandphoenix.com/features/top/ts_multi/documents/04301746.asp
