On handguns, tradition and radicalism
Gun show in Houston, Texas. Image from Wikipedia
I write a lot about the clash between traditional American culture — which tends to be conservative — and the rapid societal changes that have triggered deep anxiety and bitterness, particularly in rural white communities.
In broad terms, this axis defines the country’s culture war, far more than any red vs. blue or North vs. South paradigm.
The truth, which I think is irrefutable, is that our nation is changing with stunning speed in ways that have sparked a sometimes understandable backlash.
In a mere handful of decades, our concept “family” has been reinvented. Homosexuality has evolved from a recognized mental illness into a widely accepted version of “normal.”
The role of women in society has changed in radical ways, one of the largest shifts in the human paradigm in recorded history. Soon, the white community will be only one of many minorities in a truly diverse ethnic landscape.
Active Christians make up a smaller and smaller portion of citizens and the fastest growing “faith” group is made up of people with no religious convictions at all.
That’s a lot to take on board, especially since it’s hitting the “real” America all at once.
When my urban, progressive friends wring their hands about the conservative uproard against these changes, I remind them that America’s traditional culture is merely holding on to and defending values that were entirely mainstream just a few years ago.
But when it comes to guns, I don’t think this argument holds true.
When it comes to firearms, it is traditional America that’s changing, profoundly and perhaps even radically, in ways that are finally sparking real debate.
I grew up in rural America, and have always been a proud, unambiguous part of the gun-owning culture. I’ve owned firearms my entire life. My father and I were members of a shooting club at a range in my home town. We hunted whitetail deer.
While courting my wife — herself a holder of NRA merit badges for marksmanship — I hunted turkey and deer with my future father-in law.
One of my wife’s proudest gifts to our son (he was 13 years old at the time) was his first .22 rifle.
My brother Allen and I have hunted together since childhood, and he writes one of the best hunting and fishing blogs in the Midwest.
What we didn’t do? We didn’t own military-style weaponry.
In all my childhood and young adulthood, I don’t remember anyone owning assault rifles or high-capacity banana clips, or talking about the need for such weapons.
Guys owned shotguns for hunting fowl. We owned hunting rifles. Some men — not, by a long-shot, all — owned a pistol for home security, to protect their businesses, or for protection against grizzly bears, or for sport.
Through the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, when I was a kid and a young man, the loggers and fishermen and outdoorsmen I grew up around would have been baffled by anyone packing a military-style heat.
I remember in particular one of my friends bragging that his dad still had an old German Luger military pistol locked away in a drawer, a legacy of his grandfather’s service in World War II.
The idea was kind of shocking and exciting.
But if you asked me whether any of our dads would have advocated legalizing teflon coated “copkiller” bullets or fought for the right to use high capacity magazines, I’d say no way.
I’m not sure when the gun culture changed.
What I can tell you is that in the part of America where I grew up — Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and later Alaska — it didn’t look much like the gun culture that exists today.
Guys didn’t talk about the need to arm themselves so that they could someday resist their own despotic government. There wasn’t survivalist talk or talk of “2nd amendment” solutions to democratic debates.
I suspect the change came from the narrowing agenda of the NRA, which shifted from a mom-and-pop style hunter and gun-safety organization to a sleek, powerful culture war advocacy group that sees no room for compromise or nuance.
In their worldview, there are gun lovers and believers in the Constitution, and there are those who would confiscate every single firearm.
It’s a gun culture that leaves no room for people like me, who value sporting guns and believe in protecting gun ownership, but have serious moral and practical questions about the need for high-efficiency military-style pistols and assault rifles.
I suspect that at least some of the change also came from a growing population of American gun enthusiasts who don’t have strong ties to rural life.
There are a lot of suburbanites and urban folks who embraced the gun-show bang-bang culture that gets a rush out of hard-core hardware, without having been introduced to firearms through the common sense values of their fathers and mothers.
Finally, I suspect that a lot of the change in America’s gun culture came through the commercialization of firearms, as manufacturers — who now clear $12 billion a year — worked to sell more and more high-end “cool” weapons.
The kind of guns that ravaged Aurora and Newtown and Columbine have much higher profit margins — and fanboy appeal — than you see for a serious hunting rifle or a practical shotgun.
So while on many issues, it is urban, progressive Americans who have moved into new, experimental, and sometimes nervous territory, when it comes to guns I think it’s fair to argue that conservatives are the ones who have changed.
While talking about the long-standing tradition of gun ownership and flying the banner of the 2nd amendment, they’re drawing lines in the sand that I’m guessing would have made little sense to the guys in the coffee shop in my hometown.
So here’s my question to those of you who see yourselves as gun rights advocates. When was the first time you saw people in your community owning (or desiring) these kinds of weapons?
When did you or your friends begin to see military-style pistols and assault rifles and banana clip-type accessories as part of America’s gun culture?
Once again Brian Mann comes through with a thoughtful and sensible analysis. That kind of reasoned thinking drives the knee-jerk ideologues on both extremes of an issue crazy. Keep up the good work Brian!
Old Bulgarian thwarts assassination attempt with back-hand. Assassin is disabled by mob without any use of firearms. Restrictive gun laws in Bulgaria save politicians life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdjNV9nv3QQ
“So here’s my question to those of you who see yourselves as gun rights advocates. When was the first time you saw people in your community owning (or desiring) these kinds of weapons?” I first saw them being bought by friends in 1965 when the AR-15 first came out. The AR-15 was then modified with a selector switch and was used by the U.S. Forces as the M-16 in Viet Nam. The M-16 no longer exists as the military has improved it. The AR-15 is basically that same rifle that has been on sale since 1965.
Assault weapons/rifles have been illegal since 1934. An assault rifle is a selective fire (selectable among either fully automatic, burst-capable, or, sometimes, semi-automatic modes of operation) rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine. Assault rifles are the standard service rifles in most modern armies. Fully automatic fire refers to an ability for a rifle to fire continuously until the magazine is empty and no rounds remain; “burst-capable” fire refers to an ability of a rifle to fire a small yet fixed multiple number of rounds with but one press of the trigger; in contrast, semi-automatic refers to an ability to fire but one round per press of a trigger. The presence of selective fire modes on assault rifles permits more efficient use of rounds to be fired for specific needs, versus having but a single mode of operation, such as fully automatic, thereby conserving ammunition while maximizing on-target accuracy and effectiveness.
Examples of assault rifles include the StG 44, AK-47, M16 rifle, QBZ-95, INSAS, Heckler & Koch G36, and Enfield SA80.
The term assault rifle is a translation of the German word Sturmgewehr (literally “storm rifle”, “storm” as in “military attack”). The firearm generally considered the first assault rifle that served to popularize the concept and form the basis for today’s modern assault rifles.
The translation assault rifle gradually became the common term for similar firearms sharing the same technical definition as the StG 44. In a strict definition, a firearm must have at least the following characteristics to be considered an assault rifle:
It must be an individual weapon with provision to fire from the shoulder ;
It must be capable of selective fire;
It must have an intermediate-power cartridge: more power than a pistol but less than a standard rifle or battle rifle;
Its ammunition must be supplied from a detachable magazine rather than a feed-belt.
And it should at least have a firing range of 300 meters (1000 feet)
· The term “assault rifle” is often more loosely used for commercial or political reasons to include other types of arms, particularly arms that fall under a strict definition of the battle rifle, or semi-automatic variant of military rifles such as AR-15s. These weapons would not be acceptable to any military in the world as an assault weapon. They are considered no more effective than a bolt operated weapon.
· The US Army defines assault rifles as “short, compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachinegun and rifle cartridges.” Rifles that meet most of these criteria, but not all, are technically not assault rifles despite frequently being considered as such. For example, semi-automatic-only rifles like the AR-15 (which the M16 rifle is based on) that share parts or design characteristics with assault rifles are not assault rifles, as they are not capable of switching to automatic fire and thus are not selective fire capable. Belt-fed weapons or rifles with fixed magazines are likewise not assault rifles because they do not have detachable box magazines.
Assault rifles vs. Assault weapons
In the United States “assault weapons” are usually defined in legislation as semi-automatic firearms that have certain features generally associated with military firearms, including assault rifles. Some definitions in “assault weapon” legislation under consideration are much broader to the point of including the majority of firearms, e.g. to include all semi-automatic firearms or all firearms with detachable magazines. The 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which expired on September 13, 2004, codified the definition of an assault weapon. It defined the rifle type of assault weapon as a semiautomatic firearm with the ability to accept a detachable magazine and two or more of the following:
a folding or telescoping stock ?
a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon ?
a bayonet mount ?
a flash suppressor or threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor ?
a grenade launcher ?
The assault weapons ban did not further restrict weapons capable of fully automatic fire, such as assault rifles and machine guns, which have been continuously and heavily regulated since the National Firearms Act of 1934 was passed. Subsequent laws such as the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 also affected the importation and civilian ownership of fully automatic firearms, the latter fully prohibiting sales of newly manufactured machine guns to non-law enforcement or SOT (special occupational taxpayer) dealers.
In more casual usage, the term “assault weapon” is sometimes politically conflated with the term assault rifle. The use of the term “assault weapon” is also highly controversial, as critics assert that the term is a media invention, or a term that is intended to cause confusion among the public by intentionally misleading the public to believe that assault weapons (as defined in legislation) are full automatic firearms when they are not.
I realize this was a long screed, but I felt that as an educated person you should use terms properly. If you want to rail against black guns, or scary guns, or semi-automatic military looking guns, be my guest. But as a lifelong member of the military that used assault weapons from 1959 to 1992, I take great umbrage in grandstanding politicians and people who have no idea screaming to make something illegal that is already illegal. And this simply because it makes for a good basis for instilling fear and irrationality for immediate political aggrandizement.
Now let’s discuss that big black scary rifle that is nothing more than a semi-automatic like the Ruger 10/22 22 calibre rifle and the M1 Carbine which have been around for years and just because they are not scary are not considered assault weapons.
You asked why do you need that? I need an AR primarily for self defense. Could I use another gun for self defense? Of course I could and the AR may not be the best firearm to use in all defensive situations. I could use a shotgun or a pistol, I could use a baseball bat or a knife, I could use a tennis racket, a golf club, my bare hands, or I could just try playing possum.
It is not a question of what I use to defend myself but my right and desire to have the best possible tool for the job at my disposal. I want a semi-automatic rifle with an adequate capacity magazine for the same reason the police want them; to be able to quickly and accurately engage multiple assailants should the need arise.
Another argument is that the caliber is too weak to use for hunting. The AR is traditionally chambered in the 5.56x45mm NATO (interchangeable with the .223 Remington caliber) cartridge. The U.S. Military has been using this round as their primary rifle caliber for 50 years, through many wars and other interventions. If it was not effective we would not still have it. As with any firearm, the weight and type of bullet can be easily changed to deliver better performance and while not all loadings may be ideal for hunting, many are used on deer, feral hogs, coyote, and other game animals.
Another is that these guns are too dangerous for people to own. Ignoring the fact that semi-automatic rifles are used to commit only a tiny fraction of all gun crimes and that gun crimes overall have been declining for the past 20 years, the AR and other similar rifles are no more dangerous than any other firearm. The AR is semi-automatic and fires once each time the trigger is depressed, like a double-action revolver, or any pistol, or many other rifles and shotguns.
If you believe that the AR is too dangerous to own then there is no rational limit to what firearms you will find too dangerous next. Politicians have attacked firearms as too dangerous because they are too small and easy to conceal, too cheap and easy for poor people to buy, too accurate and usable and sniper weapons, too powerful and usable against vehicles. The list of “too dangerous” can easily be expanded to cover most any firearm and making every firearm “too dangerous” is exactly the real agenda.
Do I own or will I own an AR-15, probably not. But I will fight the arguments against them because once they get rid of the AR’s, the next will be any semi-auto rifle, then semi-auto pistols and finally every firearm. This is the procedure that has been used in every country that has ended up with a dictatorship. Can they be controlled better, you betcha; but the problem is that there is not a politician out there that I would trust to make a rational judgement. Their sole purpose in life, as I said before, is their self aggrandizement, not public safety.
Answering the question: I first started started to hear about them and see them in the ’70’s and 80’s and after that they were everywhere – news, comics, movies and video games. As a teacher one keeps an eye on new trends because some aspect of trends start to appear in the classroom. The image of them and the conversation around these guns was horrifying; students drawing them, including them in conversation, imatating them in school halls, and as I am still in the classroom, it continues – it has escalated to a level that is beyond the comprehension of most people. As a teacher of American government, among other things, I would suggest we have gone way beyond the second amendment in talking about gun violence in this country – as I set my eyes on retirement my future will still be threatened beyond the classroom as these weapons of mass destruction are everywhere and their little partners in crime, the hand guns, are the primary tools of the street gangs and thugs who think nothing of human life if you are a target or an innocent by-stander. I hope that those who legally own guns will join forces to arrive at a constructive point where we are a safer people, our communities are a model of civility and the goals of forming a common union and bond are what we all strive towards. The way the dialogue is going at the moment that sounds more like Disneyland than reality – too bad – Keep up the good work Brian – glad you got the conversation going – Ann Gearhart