[Leica] Armed America on the Road

[msmall at aya.yale.edu (Marc James Small)]

At 04:39 PM 6/24/06 -0400, Jim Shulman wrote:
>I understand that's the whole point of this project--that gun ownership is a
>lot more "normal" than most of us non-owners would imagine.  While the usual
>media image of a gun owner is some wild-eyed fanatic living in a garret,
>Kyle is showing otherwise--that it's as ubiquitous as owning a Toro riding
>mower or Veg-o-matic.  
>
>That's not to say more desirable than owning the mower or Popeil items--he's
>not making judgments about that--but it is rather remarkable in that he's
>putting faces on what had been anonymity.

A number of us on the LUG are gun owners.  I don't hunt but I do target
shoot on occasion.  (My rifle is a 1909 Argentine Mauser rechambered to .30
- '06 I picked up years back from my Secretary's father as part of a fee.
I had a 3X-9X by 30mm scope mounted on it -- the scope was made by the
Arsenal folks in the Ukraine, the guys who gave us those Contax RF clones,
the Kiev cameras, for so many years -- it even has the oblate triune sphere
logo on it.)  I don't own it for intimdiation, I don't own it for machismo,
I don't own it for self-defense (though my wife came equipped with a.22
Ruger target pistol along with a whole aresenal, so our differences tend to
be VERY peacefully resolved <he grins> -- but, then, she is a Michigan
farmer by origin and grew up around guns much more so than I did.)  I do
take my rifle out every couple of years with a couple of boxes of 280-grain
ammunition (have to use the high-power rounds as there is the barrel is a
tad larger than the regulation .30 - '06 one, tehcnically it's a 7.62mm
round in an 8mm barrel, though the actual measurements are a bit different..

There were no firearms in my house when I was growing up but my father was
retired from the Army and had commanded an anti-aircraft battery in Alaska
in combat during the Second World War.  I learned to shoot when I was 12
and taught marksmanship when I was a Boy Scout camp staff member and later
as a Scoutmaster (along with teaching campcraft, pioneering, map work and
orienteering, first aid, lifesaving and so forth).  I consistently shot
Marksman in the Army, generally on the M1 or M14 or M16 but on occasion on
the M1911A1 .45 automatic or on a substitute such as a .22 target pistol.
The Army allowed me to fire a LOT of weapons from small-bore rifles and
pistols up through 81mm and 4.2" mortars to 90mm and 105mm tank guns and
even 105mm and 155mm and, on a few occasions, 8" howitzers.  I never had a
desire to own a gun despite an intense interest in military history:
during most of my time, I was much more concerned with the maintenance
cycles and MTBF for, say, the M1 tank or the CUCV than I was on popping off
rounds downrange.

I own a gun just because I own a gun.  Very few of my friends know that I
own a gun and that my wife has an arsenal that would choke the average pawn
shop.  We do not belong to the NRA or the like, we do not have
bumper-stickers on our cars (well, at election time, I generally sport
something along the lines of OCTAVIA JOHNSON FOR SHERIFF or the like), we
do not go to demonstrations.  I know a bunch of other gun owners who are
much of a sort with my pattern, and I suspect that most US gun owners just
own guns and so be it.  It is not the central part of our lives, it is just
something we do and, yes, my wife came equipped with a riding mower which
seems a bit of an overkill on my small yard and I tend to do my cooking on
cast iron.  The only Cuisinart I use is our coffee maker, though I prefer
to grind the beans in a Krups grinder proving that even a mild techno-geek
can go low-tech on occasion.  (I do have my late mother's Cuisinart
processer but my wife simply refuses to use it, preferring the old ways of
doing it by hand.  We are having strip steaks and blanched asparagus and a
bottle of Chilean red wine in a few minutes:  we do eat simply but well!)

USian citizens have rights derived from the common sovereignity and
expressed in our Constitution.  The Bible does not provide any "rights" to
Chirstians as Paul makes clear that anyone saved -- and he does not
restrict this to "Christians", interestingly -- is saved but through the
infinite Grace of God.  We Christians do have a lot of obligations, most of
which we miss -- how many of us have ever gone down to Skid Row on
Thanksgiving Morning and brought it a couple of hungover street folks for a
meal in the haven of our home? -- but at the same time we have no
guarantees with Christ other than that if we throw ourselves wholeheartedly
into his service, we shall earn His happiness.  But, again, there are only
the haziest of guarantees in the Bible and I get fidgety when folks start
talking about a "God-given right" to bear firearms.  The right came from
the forefathers when they developed our common polity by drafting the
Constitution, and is only as strong as we make it.  (I can discuss Second
Amendment rights all day long but, as I note below, that is not a proper
topic for discussion on the LUG., so contact me off-List, as I am not a
member of the Forum.)

We can argue the radical fringes all we want but that probably belongs on
the Forum and not on the LUG itself as we would soon be discussing ALL of
the radical fringe elements and then we'd be into the sort of general
donnybrook which makes my Riley blood elated but which causes my Hielan'
ancestors to roll over in their graves at the wasting of a good fight on
something which cannot be resolved.  So, the Forum is probably the place
for the discussion of the social aspects of firearm ownership, while a
discussion of these fine pictures is, of course, at the heart of the LUG.

Sorry to have rattled on so long, but I am responding in fine to a bunch of
comments from other members and just wanted you guys to realize that there
are gun owners on the LUG -- for that matter, our Senior Member, was taught
BRM (Basic Rifle Marksmanship) by William Tell shortly before he did that
magnificent book of combat photographs taken during the Wars of the Roses,
though I don't know that Ted has ever owned a firearm.

Marc

msmall@aya.yale.edu 
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!