I was about 6 years old the first time I held a gun. My parents asked us into their bedroom, stuck the gun in my, and also my sister’s, hands and asked us to pull the trigger. They were testing the safety latch (or ‘switch,’ I’m not a gun owner, so I don’t know the parlance), to see if we kids were strong enough to pull the trigger and drop the hammer. My sister was 4. Why did they do this? Because the damn thing was faulty. Total junk. The safety latch didn’t work properly. But the gun sure worked. My sister and I couldn’t pull the trigger and the session was over and we were escorted out of their room to continue watching tv or whatever.
Years later, when I was a teen, I asked my parents to tell the story of why they did that. Well, apparently, grown adults could pull the trigger of that particular gun even with the safety on, but us little kids were not strong enough (as we found out!).
Their gun was an old, small, dirty, banged up .38 snub nose that they kept in their bedroom in case there were intruders or other riff raff. We lived in an unsafe neighborhood, many years ago. And, unlike today, cops avoided the bad neighborhoods. We were on our own in the fringe south.
I hadn’t touched a gun again until about 2000 in lovely Seattle, Washington (go Belltown!), when a co-worker (call him John) invited me to go to a shooting range after work. “I can’t go,” I said. “I don’t have a license.” “Pshaw!” said my co-worker, “You don’t need a license to shoot a gun!”. I couldn’t believe it. “What!? Impossible.” I protested. “You definitely need a license to shoot a gun!”, I argued, apparently stupidly. “This is A-fucking-merica!” John said, grinning.
I was scared and curious.
At the allotted hour, we drove “Wade’s Eastside Gun Shop”, a low-key shooting range in a Bellevue, Washington suburb. The building was dull and bland beige, low slung - just one floor tall - and looked like a simple warehouse with one door. The parking lot was full of regular everyday cars - Honda and mini-vans and such. There was a red awning and big read letters on the side of the building, “Wade’s Eastside Gun Shop”. And this is where I shot a Beretta 92, an Italian(!) made gun apparently used by US military.
I pulled open the glass door and a bell jangled. The room was smaller than expected, similar to a jewelry shop with clean glass display cases, bored sales people behind a counter, and customers leaning on the cases pointing at various guns and bullets on display. The walls were lined with guns, arranged neatly in rows with little signs next to them: “Glock 9 #37″ “Colt 45 #19″ “Sig .32 #23″ etc. Many were rifles.
John walked up the counter, already knowing what to say and rent - apparently you can rent guns, buy bullets and targets, and shoot them in a back room, I learned.
Here’s a picture of Wade’s Gun Shop. Wade’s had its share of suicides, accidental shootings, and lead poisoning incidents over the years.
I don’t remember what he rented, but it was a powerful pistol with a magazine. He ordered some bullets, 9mm I remember because we shared. The salesman pulled out a square box and gave it John. The guy checked my co-worker’s id and gave him the gun - literally pulled the gun from the glass case and put the gun in front of John. It was black and looked sort of like a transformer from when I was a kid.
Then came my turn. “What can I do ya for?” asked the bored salesman. I looked at John, and shrugged, “Dude, I have no idea what I’m doing.” “Baretta 92. Green over here never shot a gun,” John said to the salesman. They both erupted in laughter, “Haw. Haw. Haw. Haw!” I was not fucking amused.
The guy handed me the gun and the magazine and THEN asked to see my id. I was - and still am to this day - shocked at what I thought was impossible: I had a gun in my hand without a gun license.
The salesman gave us ear protection and told us where to go. We walked behind the counter to a steel door. He opened it and behind it was a very large room, exposing why the building was so big and justifying why the showroom floor was so tiny. We took our guns, bullets, ear protection, and targets to one booth. At the booth was a shelf where we put our guns down. Just above our heads was what looked to be a clothes line. Other booths were occupied and people were shooting various types of guns - some were very loud, others were not. Some were shooting very fast - “boomboomboombooomboom!” unloading all their bullets in one go. Others were shooting strategically, “Pow!” pause “Pow!” pause.
John showed me how to load the bullets in the magazine. I was nervous and still confused how it was that I had a gun in my hand without a license.
John ensured that I felt extremely stupid, and I swear to this day that he was getting off on making fun of my naivete.
We pinned a paper target (a plain bullseye I remember) to the clothesline, pushed a button in the booth, and the target moved down a long empty row to a marker. I believe it was 100 feet, but I don’t remember. John told me to never point the gun unless I was intending to shoot. “Always point to the floor,” he said. Next, he showed me how to position my finger - always to the side of the gun and never on the trigger. He showed me how to hold the Beretta - with two hands, one cupping the bottom of my shooting hand. I was sweating like a nervous fool. He stood behind me, told me to aim, lightly held my right arm, told me to pull the trigger. “BANG!!”
My hand reverberated with a shockwave - and I’m telling you it was the scariest moment of my life. So many emotions flowed through my body in the very moment. I knew, right then, right there, with the smell of sharp gunpowder in my nose, that guns were the scourge of humankind. The scourge of humankind. This heavy, compact, black Baretta packed with many 9mm bullets was designed with one purpose. It had so, so much power, so much intention, so much focus on purely “wanting” to kill a person.
I refused to continue shooting and put the gun down. It was awful and horrifying. John laughed at me, cackled at me. But I didn’t care. It was wrong, too powerful and shocking. I vowed never to touch a gun again.
Years later, I moved to rural Western Massachusetts to go back to university. I enrolled in two separate masters programs, Urban Planning at UMass-Amherst, and Environmental Law and Policy at Vermont Law School. I rented two apartments, one in Mass., the other in Vermont, and split time between the two schools.
I became friends a professor, Kat from Missouri. She was married to a nice fella named Derrick. They rented a farm house on the side of a small mountain. We barbecued, tubed the White River, and drank beers around a large fire pit over several semesters. One day, Derrick asked me if I ever shot a gun. I said yes, and relayed the one-9mm-bullet story. He didn’t laugh, as many other people have when I told the story. He was kind and invited me to watch him shoot a small rifle, a Ruger .22, I believe.
That’s me, above, taking instructions. Same situation, he showed me safety tips, how to aim, and we set targets - pasta sauce cans lined on a wooden fence. I pulled the trigger and the gun didn’t kick like the Beretta. It didn’t shock my hand. It didn’t scare me with a loud “bang”.
I wasn’t very good, but I probably shot 10 or 15 bullets. That was in 2008. I never held a gun since. I simply don’t like them. I think guns should be regulated, like cars, or heavy equipment, or hazardous materials, or plumbers. You get kicked out of a movie theater if you sneak in M&Ms and a soda. But not with guns. You can walk right in and it’s confusing - chocolate is regulated, guns not. Abortion, constitutionally permissible, is regulated AF. Guns, constitutionally permissible, are barely regulated.
My friend Derrick is a liberal guy and liked to target practice and hunt for food. He didn’t like pistols; said they served no purpose other than to kill and maim. “Rifles are were it’s at,” he’d often say. “You get dinner with rifles. And they’re safer. Pistols get you jail.”
I still don’t understand why you don’t need a license to rent a gun.
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