Day at the Gun Club

I’ve been disturbed by the noise of the adjacent gun club for some time, large semi-automatic rifles blasting away, disrupting my sleep and work. I had opposed the 2nd Amendment’s implied injunction that people should be free to own guns and foolishly believed that people killed not guns. It was difficult to remember the correct bumper sticker of ideology, so I decided instead of railing again guns and gun violence, I needed to seize the day, and come to a genuine understanding of guns and people.
Saturday, in late May, everyone at the gun club was out for their Memorial day shoot, gun members from Connecticut , Massachusetts , and one from Virginia came to celebrate all the skeet shooting, target practice, and good natured noisy fun that a rifle range is open to. I was a little hesitant as I’m a die hard leftist libertarian and realized I needed to challenge some of my assumptions about guns. The guys and the gals at the club couldn’t have been more friendlier, though they did look askance at my “Send Bush to Iraq” bumper sticker, they knew that I was trying to reach out and connect with my southern New England neighbors who love to come up to Vermont to shoot. Liberals only can dream about having so much fun. I leaped on to a monstrous ATV with my 12 gauge shot gun strapped across my shoulders and on my hip was a 44 Magnum that would have made Dirty Harry proud and zoomed away to the practice range. I had finally found my tribe. Little kids were out there with 22’s and a skinny bleached blond girl in a black leather jacket was firing on her little uzzi like a proud aspiring assassin. These are serious folks, no wonder the liberals can’t win an election… they need more firepower. There is little that is more orgiastic exciting than coming out for a day of shooting with the semi-automatics, the shot guns, and a hand pistol. As I saw the American flag in red, white, and blue on the hillside I had a lump in my throat, a tear, as I saw the blasting of rifles on that glorious afternoon and recalled the bombing of Fort Sumter where the flag held through that night. Holding the cool long steel barrel in my hands and feeling the portent of pulsating hot plasma of fire, I knew that I was on to something big.
My new found friend Big Jim and Bubba are two good old southern boys ( Southern Vermont that is) who love to hunt, fish, and hunt. A few swigs from Big Jim’s Jim Beam and I’m feeling in the cozy warmth and familiarity of “my tribe.” Despite all the progress of humanity, bigger firepower, and bombs of all kinds there was something so reassuring about the basic connection with ones own tribe in the hunt. I was beginning to wish there were a few liberals romping across the field so I could feel the real thrill of the kill and asked Big Jim about it.
“I know what ya mean about getting something meaningful, like taking down a beautiful 12 point buck or dropping a big old black bear. Man, there are few things that compare to that.”
“How about sex?” I asked
Big Jim looked at me kind of strange, “What ya man, sex.” Then looked around to make sure no one had heard him.
“What’s better sex or killing a big trophy deer? Or is there that same rush of sex you get when you kill?”
Bubba said, “That’s a might strange way of looking at it. Why don’t you go over to the target range on yonder and think about it a bit.”
“Sure enough.” I’d give them a little bit of time to think about that one. I had my Magnum and was itching to try it. Suddenly I had an epiphany.
“Big Jim! Bubba! Come back I want to try an experiment!”
I walked over to Big Jim some ten feet away from me, raised my gun to his head and fired point blank, took a half step to the right and shot Bubba once between the eyes. Someone else came, I raised a gun and fired. It was the slow dream of carnage in the carnival of death. Then everyone ran into the woods.
“Wait! Come back!” I was so angry. I had made the effort to connect with the club, got over my narrow prejudices about guns, finally made a breakthrough and then they all fled, but I came to truly appreciate Big Jim’s perspective-- guns don’t kill, but people do.
p.s. In lieu of flowers to the Gun Club, please send donations to: NRA Youth Education Fund.