I haven’t talked about guns in a while…in fact, I don’t think I’ve discussed the issue at all on this particular blog. I supposed I should toss something out there about it and since I have a particular personal story that popped into my mind today, let’s just go with that. This isn’t a pro-gun rant, exactly, just an interesting story.

Interesting to me anyway. Entirely up to you whether you find it interesting.

My stance on guns has changed pretty dramatically in the past few years. I used to be fairly anti-gun. Can’t say I’ve had especially positive experiences with them up until recently. Plus I lived in California with the liberal loons for a good long time. The thinking out there (and among liberal knuckleheads pretty much everywhere) is that guns are the root of all evil.

That and moral absolutes.

When I got back home to Louisiana though…I had to actually reexamine that position. Down here guns are any everyday part of the culture. It may sound hokey and cheesy but half the folks with a truck really do have gun racks in back of the cab. You can walk into Wal-Mart and buy a shotgun, no problem. There are concealed carry laws and such but if you want a gun you can pretty much just buy one. Easy peasy.

On the other hand we also have, I think, the highest rate of gun violence in the country. So there’s that.

Nevertheless, any doubts I had over the issue of gun ownership were settled when Hurricane Katrina blew through here. Everything pretty much went straight to heck. We didn’t have water or power for weeks. We were literally filtering and boiling water to drink from ditches and ponds. We were, as I recall, eying the wild dogs in the area right up until some National Guard boys managed to break through and get some MRE’s to us.

Native Americans regularly enjoyed boiled dog, as I understand.

And during all those weeks of chaos, with no police patrols or any form of government in attendance beyond the padlocked doors of the local mayor’s office, we had a few days of serious concern there. Up until that point we’d managed to do pretty well (relatively). We’d gathered together everyone in the neighborhood and quite a few people from beyond. Since we had a huge open yard across the street (a local school’s playground) we ended up with a small camp of very slightly displaced refugees (some from just a few blocks over) pitching tent (literally in most cases) right across the street from us.

We organized. We had laundry crews and cooking crews and hunting crews (yep, some of the boys went hunting quite a few times there to supplement dwindling MRE supplies). We even had a full-time crew devoted to nothing else all day but producing potable drinking water. And word got out. And our numbers swelled to nearly two hundred by the time the lights came back on and we saw police cars on patrol again.

But some folks don’t want to pitch in and help each other. Some would rather just take what you’ve got instead. And word got around about a few people getting shot over food and water. Even a jug of gasoline in one case. Quite a few people died. There were even a couple of bandit gangs we’d heard of. I know one in particular was of real concern.

And word was, they were branching out and hitting houses more in our direction. Over the course of a week we heard about this and that bit of violence and theft, each inching closer and closer to our “territory”.

So we armed the boys. Passed out shotguns and rifles (and hunting bows in a couple of cases). We starting patrolling a six block perimeter. Even tossed up a couple of barricades. We had armed groups of three or four trustworthy, level-headed folks patrolling a six-block area, even at night. I took up a rifle and went on a few of those patrols myself (there weren’t really that many people we trusted not to be impulsive and shoot someone). We even sent out messengers to bring word to those between here and there that we had a safe place to camp, if they wanted to relocate.

In the end we managed to avoid any violence. Word got out in return that our area was protected and I think that’s why none of the knuckleheads came our way. We did have a couple of incidents where an armed group made a pass, spotted our boys packing heat and high-tailed it. And that was good. It was exactly what we were aiming for.

So at the end of the day I was very, very glad we all had those guns, that so many of us knew how to use them and had a healthy respect for what they’re capable of. From what I heard only the knuckleheads had guns down in New Orleans. And true to knucklehead form, they were shooting at the folks trying to bring them help.

Yes, forget what Spike Lee says. That sort of thing did happen. A lot. I remember hearing one radio personality talking with a rescue worker over a cell phone, who was describing being shot at…at that moment. You could hear the “pops” in the background, even over the phone. The guy was hunkered down behind a jeep, casually joking about the whole thing. He’d gotten used to it.

But that’s why I’m all for gun ownership. The old saying goes something like this: A gun is like a condom. It’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. And it’s true. It’s really that simple.

Now onto the main story I want to tell here. I’ve covered why I’m all for gun ownership but I also mentioned how glad I was that the folks we had on patrol knew how to use those guns and had a healthy respect for them. So let’s get to how that is done.

I resisted my husband’s efforts (just a friend at the time) to convince me to go to the gun range with him. I didn’t really want to learn how to shoot a gun well. As I’ve said, I hadn’t had very good experiences with them up to that point. He’d largely managed to convince me that they’re a useful tool and that it’s good for people to know how to use them. I just wasn’t quite convinced I should in particular. The thing that convinced me was his peculiar view on guns. He thinks they’re terrible. Awful, terrible tools designed for only one purpose: killing things.

But since killing things is sometimes useful, it’s best to learn how to do it properly should the need ever arise.

I was largely convinced and just about to agree to go along for a few gun lessons…until I heard the story of how he’d introduced his son to guns. I’d noticed and commented on the fact that he keeps guns in the house and that those guns aren’t exactly locked up tight behind steel vault doors. We have a gun cabinet even today and while there’s a lock on it…it’s not exactly Fort Knox. Wasn’t he concerned, I pointed out, that his son would play around and blow someone’s head off? Or his own?

He pointed out that way back in the old west days guns weren’t typically locked up at all. Kids that age had guns of their own. And kept them. They were theirs. Was it considered a huge problem then? Why now? So I threw the question right back at him. Yeah, why is it such a problem now?

Now let me jump track a bit and share something with you before we go further. I remember a t.v. show way back when I was a kid. Can’t remember what show exactly. Sixty Minutes I think. In that show they conducted a little experiment to show that kids and guns don’t mix well. They put a bunch of kids in a room with chairs, table, bookshelf, etc. And on that bookshelf they put a handgun.

I’m fairly sure they just stuck the gun behind some books but made it easy to find for a bunch of bored kids who would, inevitably, start rooting around for something interesting to do. So of course the kids found the gun.

And they freaked out. They got very excited very quickly. It was less than two minutes before they were pointing it at each other, playing around and pretending to shoot one another. Bang, bang, you’re dead.

The obvious point being: what if the gun was loaded? What if it was your kid in that room? Odds are good someone will get shot. People who are shot tend to die.

That made a huge impression on me. Enough that I brought this up early in our conversation regarding the guns in his house. Matthew laughed. He assured me, quite confidently, that his son would never be that foolish. So, naturally, I pointed out how completely foolish that assumption was.

So he told me the story of how he introduced his son to guns. He even invited him into the conversation to back up the story. It goes something like this:

The first time he ever put a gun in the boy’s hands he took him to the firing range. Took a mid-sized can of tomato sauce as well. Then he put the can on a little table right in front of a big white Styrofoam board. And he pasted a big picture of one of his son’s friend’s face on the tomato can.

He tells his son something like, “So, you and your friend are playing around one day in the house. You decide you’re going to show off and tell him all about dad taking you to the gun range to shoot. You even dig up dad’s old handgun from the bedroom to show him. You check to be sure it isn’t loaded but maybe you mess up. Maybe there’s one in the chamber. In the excitement of showing your friend what a big guy you are with your handgun training, the gun’s pointed right at his head when it goes off.”

BANG! Tomato splatter.

“Your friend’s dead now. You killed him.”

Jeremiah decided not to learn about guns that day after all. He just hung around until dad was done and then they went back home. It was about year later that he asked to go back and take a crack at it. He’s pretty good with a pistol or rifle these days. Better than me, by a long shot (no pun intended).

But he won’t go near the guns in the house. He perks up and gets anxious when anyone touches one, even us. As he should. As any rational person should. The few times I’ve been hunting with he and his dad I was startled to notice how careful he was with his rifle. He’s always acutely aware of where it’s pointed, how he’s holding it, if it’s loaded…he even pointed out to his dad that he should be a bit more careful a couple of times.

And don’t get me wrong here, it’s not as if guns are left laying about on the kitchen table. We have a gun cabinet in the living room, in full view. We keep a couple of handguns in the bedroom. And we’re aware of them at all times. I think the boy would have as much luck sneaking around getting hold of one without us being aware as he would setting fire to his hair without anyone noticing. It’s not as if we simply shrug and trust he won’t be stupid. Smart people do stupid things everyday.

No one touches a gun unsupervised, even the adults in the house. They are never left unsecured when we aren’t right there with them. That cabinet stays locked at all times and he’s not allowed in our bedroom without us with him to begin with.

At the end of the day there’s more danger of this boy running over someone with a car than shooting someone accidentally. And that’s only because we haven’t gotten around the teaching him to drive yet.

So. I remember asking him what he’d do if he’d been in that room with those kids when they found that gun on the bookshelf. He said he’d keep them from touching it. Tackle and fight them if he had to. And if he couldn’t stop them, he’d have left the room in a panic to report what was going on. Even the hypothetical situation made him anxious and he was quite passionate about.

He didn’t have a lot good to say about the knuckleheads kids in that program. He was rather harshly judgmental of them. So when I pointed out to him that it wasn’t really those kid’s fault but rather the parent’s for not teaching them respect for guns…well, that’s when it hit me.

And that’s when I decided not only to go with Matthew to the gun range but that we’d best go that very weekend. Because I was being a knucklehead. And I don’t like being a knucklehead.