Gun Control

Like most teenage boys of my generation, I have fond memories of playing Duck Hunt on my Nintendo and shooting BB guns at GI Joe men. But, unlike most of the guys I am around today, these activities were just a teaser for what I would do every hunting season when my Dad and I drove out to the mountains with loaded rifles.

My earliest outdoor training started like every one should: gun control. For me, “gun control” meant learning how to control my gun, rather the today's political message of learning how to not have a gun. My father taught me gun control by simply describing to me the mechanism and operation of my BB gun. As a hunter's safety instructor, he used the same analogy every time: “On a pencil, there is an end you can write with and an end you can erase with. But, do you see an eraser on this weapon? What you do with this machine cannot be undone. Once that bullet leaves the end of your barrel, whatever you're pointing it towards will be dead. Do not point the barrel at anything you are not willing to shoot.” As a result, I learned to be terrified of every weapon I touched, no matter how small.

These fears remain even today. My roommate recently bought an airsoft gun, which shoots a small plastic BB by way of a spring. However, when he jokingly fired a shot at me in my backyard, I made it very clear that if he so much as points that weapon in my direction again, one of us will end up very hurt. I even blink when a squirt gun is pointed at me. Even though the weapon is just a machine, I respect the machinery of that weapon to work when called upon, even if it is accidental. Unlike people, weapons rarely malfunction.

I remember walking down a beach with some Christian friends on a Catalina Island retreat when one female described how disgusted she was with some published pictures depicting young teenagers holding scoped rifles while dressed in camouflage. She fantasized about how much better the world would be without guns and the wars they cause. Like every good mother, she was worried about what might happen to those she loved. My mother did the same. Every time my dad and I left to go challenge the local coyote population to a duel, my mother would warn us, “If both of you don't come home together, then don't bother coming home.”

We chuckled at my mother's worries, but not because it was unfounded. We laughed because it was the equivalent of telling a skydiver to put on his parachute before he jumped out of the plane. When a weapon is the hand of either me or my father, a special part of our brain is reserved for the status and direction of that weapon. A constant internal dialog is always taking place: “Are there rounds in the magazine?” “Is there a round in the chamber?” “Is the safety engaged?” “Is there a secondary safety engaged?” “If I pulled the trigger right now, what would happen?” “Where is my hand in relation to the trigger?” “Is anything near the trigger?” “Where is the barrel pointed?” “If a bullet leaves the chamber, will it ricochet off what it hits?” “Where are the people I am with?”

I learned this internal dialog when my father asked me these questions at random while I was hunting. He would tell me to freeze at random times and ask me what would happen if my weapon went off at that point. I quickly developed the habit that unless I was sighted in and ready to fire, the safety on my weapon was engaged.

One of my most embarrassing moments during hunting was caused by this habit. My Dad and I had called in three coyotes from nearly a mile away. It took them a good hour to work up the courage to approach the sound of our fake dying rabbit. Once they decided to come in, they came in at a full sprint towards our camouflaged bodies looking for said rabbit. I lined up on the front runner, and watched him through my scope as he came. When he was at 100 yards I thought about shooting, but he was still running, so I waited. While I waited, he kept running towards us at full speed. Finally, he appeared barely 20 yards in front of me and stopped at a dead halt staring directly at me. He must've caught my scent and was trying to identify it, which gave me just enough time. My crosshairs divided the small white spot on his chest into four perfect sections. Aim small, miss small. So, I squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened. Squeezed again. Nothing. Shit. I mentally reflected without moving or even adjusting my breathing. Did I pull the trigger far enough? Yes. Did I load a round into the chamber? Yes. Did I disengage the safety? Fuck. No. I slid my thumb quickly and quietly to the safety latch and slowly slid it forward. The coyote just stared at me. Finally, it clicked. My relief was undermined when the nearby coyote heard the same metallic click and bolted away at the unnatural sound. It sprinted away faster than it came and I heard my Dad let out a huff and a slight chuckle. “Forget something?” he said. “Yup,” I said. “Safety?” he laughed. “Yup.”

Fortunately for me, coyotes have this bad habit of being curious about what they are running away from. When they feel they are at a safe distance, they almost always stop to look at it a second time. Unfortunately for this coyote, 300 yards was not enough of a safe distance. I would've much rather taken a 20 yard shot than a 300 yard shot, but I'm not complaining now. My Dad and I still laugh about that time I forgot to disengage my safety and scared off a coyote, but I always remind him that I still got it in the end. I was 14 years old at the time.

Thanks to my teenage education in gun control, I learned concentration, responsibility, and self-control. These are necessary lessons for all youth, and firearms are the medium my parents used to teach me. All youth hunters must go through a hunter's safety course to be legally able to hunt. Hunting alone teaches more self-control and responsibility than driver's training, even though I could do more damage with a car than a gun. As we know, one does not learn responsibility by stripping themselves of it. One does not learn self-control by avoiding dangerous decisions. Weapons, even dangerous ones, will teach a person more about themselves than anything else in life.

So, my friend's comment to me on Catalina island about the irresponsibility of society to put weapons in the hands of adolescent hunters struck me as quite absurd. My response was less than tactful, as I described why every teenager should grow up learning to hunt and use firearms. There is no medium that teaches character better than firearms. Parents who cannot handle the high responsibility of a gun will not be able to pass that level of maturity off to their children. Thanks to my parents allowing me to handle a gun, I learned how to manage important, even dangerous, situations since I was 12 years old. I couldn't have asked for anything more and I'm relieved they didn't dare offer me anything less.