A Few Words on Firearms

I grew up in rural upstate New York. I have family and friends who hunt. They’re proud of their hard-won skills to bag a deer with shotgun, rifle, muzzle-loader, or bow and arrow. (My brother-in-law does the latter two. He actually got a deer during bow season a few years ago.) Sometimes hunting is a form of food security, as a freezer full of venison can get a family through lean times. When I lived in Ithaca during grad school, I’d get periodic gifts of venison from the year’s catch. These were always put to good use in my little kitchen.

As I said, hunting for one’s dinner takes skill. No one in my family uses a semi-automatic rifle or handgun with a high-capacity magazine clip to get their quota of one or two deer a year. These weapons don’t take any particular skill once one learns to handle the recoil from shooting. They are made for one purpose only: Maximum murder with minimum effort. For this reason, I do not believe these need to be readily available for purchase. If they are available, there needs to be background checks on the purchasers.

I recognize that this is not a popular position to take in some neighborhoods, including in my family. The Founders may have written the Second Amendment into the Constitution, but they did not anticipate the advent of semi- or fully-automatic weaponry. My conservative friends point out that freedom isn’t free. I agree; however, with freedom comes responsibility to assure the safety of the community against people who’d do ill. This is where background checks come into play. Gun owners also have the responsibility to secure their weapons and ammunition away from children. Far too many children are killed or grievously wounded by playing with loaded guns left in drawers.

Lest you think that these are the rantings of someone in one of America’s most liberal regions, the Seattle area has had at least four mass shootings in the thirteen years I’ve lived here. The first was a man who shot up an all-night party on Capitol Hill. The second was the Jewish Federation shooting, in which a friend was seriously wounded. The third was at the Café Racer, a coffee shop northwest of the University of Washington. The most recent one was last year at Marysville-Pilchuck High School.

Gun ownership is analogous to having a drivers’ license. While it is a right, it is coupled with the responsibility of owners and the government to respect and protect the rights of others.