Textual Fisticuffs

The New Republic (you know, that magazine that gun owners don’t read), has published a very well-written article by Walter Kirn entitled “What Gun Owners Want“, with the subtitle “I’ve owned six guns. I’ve drawn them on bad guys. I want to be understood.” He’s right about that much, we do want to be understood. But in his attempts to explain us he’s describing phenomena that are far from unique to guns and their enthusiasts, using language that can only be described as somewhat ominous.

He describes the enjoyment of shooting as though it were some sort of drug, as though the feeling that “You want to do it again, again—again!” is somehow unique to shooting rather than a function of the human mind’s response to doing something it enjoys. People who love running want to keep running. People who love playing squash want to keep playing squash. The statement “…this appetite, this desire for a small, acute struggle that you can win. Win consistently. Repeatedly.” could just as easily refer to someone playing Farmville all day. His description of the phenomenon is factually accurate, but the manner in which he describes it in the context of guns plays right into ignorant fears about them.

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Consuming my normal diet of leftish media has been pretty tough lately, I don’t mind telling you. I hate to sound like a whiner, but it’s a real downer when journalists, columnists, and even comedians that you like and respect keep talking as though you’re a nutjob. Watching The Daily Show in particular has been wearing on me, and Thursday’s episode was just depressing as hell.

Here’s the thing: I do read The New Republic. And The Atlantic, and Salon, and Slate, and Talking Points Memo, every day. This means that every day for the last month I’ve had to choke down articles by writers that I admire and respect who believe that my thoughts on gun control make me some sort of foaming-at-the-mouth NRA asshole sockpuppet, and I’m just about at the end of my rope. So yeah, when we combine the president’s statement that he shoots skeet “all the time” at Camp David with the fact that the White House routinely releases photos of him doing everything short of going to the bathroom, the fact that there are no pictures of him shooting skeet and the White House refuses to release any kinda pisses me off.

I don’t actually care whether or not the president has ever fired a gun. I’m pretty sure that he hasn’t, and I’m pretty sure that if he tried it’d be the bowling fiasco all over again. What bugs me is this; if he does shoot skeet all the time, he ought not to be ashamed of it. There should be pictures. There should be amusing anecdotes about him meeting the editor of Field & Stream and having a conversation about chokes that made him late for a meeting. If I have to hear about the president’s NCAA bracket, I ought to also hear about how he shot 20/25 the other day and is pissed that he whiffed the last five.

The fact that I have neither seen nor heard anything about the president’s gun-related hobby before now means either a) it is a politically expedient fiction, and I am being lied to and, worse, patronized, or b) he genuinely does enjoy shooting sports but doesn’t have the courage to be up front about that fact. The first is infuriating. The second is just depressing, because I think Stewart couldn’t be more wrong about the reaction if President Obama came out as a sport shooter.

Update: Welp, he wasn’t lying!

Want to make a persuasive argument about gun control to some 2nd amendment advocates? Learn from this assho guy.

Pictured: A man who has forfeited his right to keep and bear digits.

That’s Virginia Delegate Joe Morrissey. On Thursday January 17th he brought an AK-47 into the Virginia statehouse and waved it around as part of a diatribe on gun control, as you can see in the above image. You can also see that there is a magazine inserted, which may or may not contain ammunition. You can see that the action is closed, which means that there is no way to tell if there is a round in the chamber. And you can see that Delegate Morrissey has his thumb inside the trigger guard. In fact, his thumb is resting against the trigger.

This violates very nearly every rule of firearms safety. Delegate Morrissey assured his colleagues that the weapon was unloaded when he took it out, but a responsible firearms user never assumes or asks another to assume that a weapon is unloaded; he demonstrates it by leaving the action open and the magazine out so that it can easily be seen to be empty. He always points the weapon in a safe direction and in such a way that he can control it, and never at anything he doesn’t intend to shoot.

He never, ever, ever puts his finger on the trigger or even just inside the trigger guard until he is ready to fire.

Now, if you’re in a position where you’re arguing with a second amendment advocate about gun control, chances are good that you’re not going to be handling guns anyway. But if you should find yourself in a situation where, as part of a debate, you have to demonstrate something with a firearm, for God’s sake learn the basics of firearms safety before you do. Not only will you have a drastically lower chance of hurting anyone, you’ll also avoid looking like an ass to the people you’re trying to persuade.