Last month a federal judge in San Diego overturned California’s longtime ban on assault weapons in a ruling that likened the AR-15 to a Swiss Army knife. Really? A Swiss Army knife? If the shooters at Sandy Hook Elementary School or the Tree of Life synagogue (to name just two) had been armed with knives instead of rifles, there would have been a lot fewer lives lost – in fact, maybe none!
I have never held, or even touched, a gun of any kind except for toy guns and water pistols.
I have never held, or even touched, a gun of any kind except for toy guns and water pistols. I did love my Dale Evans cowgirl outfit, and I probably had the holster and guns in the featured image, or something similar. But I have no memory of when or where I wore it, or whether I ever pretended to be shooting the guns at anyone or not.
I was also a big fan of the musical Annie Get Your Gun, about the life of sharpshooter Annie Oakley, which made the idea of shooting a gun glamorous, but only in the context of a Wild West Show. (Of course, that’s where I got the title song for this story, so thank you Irving Berlin.)
At some point in my childhood I learned that my father had a gun in his night table drawer. This was because a lot of his patients paid him in cash (no medical insurance OR credit cards in those days), and since he couldn’t make it to the bank to deposit the money very often (no ATMs and most banks closed at 3 pm), he generally had a lot of cash in his night table as well. I accepted this, both the fact of the gun and the reason for it, but never tried to look at the gun. Since I was usually a curious child, I’m surprised to realize this. I never saw it, and as far as I know, he never used it. It probably wasn’t even loaded.
At summer camp we had archery, so I’m familiar with looking at a target and trying to hit it, but only with an arrow, not a bullet. And considering how wildly off-course some of my arrows went, it’s a good thing I didn’t have a gun.
As I got older, I had increasingly negative views about guns, associating them with the military (soldiers fighting an immoral war in Vietnam or National Guardsmen facing down protesters) or the police (who I came to consider the enemy after the 1968 Democratic Convention). But mostly I didn’t think about guns very much. Until mass shootings started being in the news all the time.
The first mass shooting I remember was the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, where twelve students and a teacher died before the two shooters, who were also students, killed themselves. However, that was far from the first mass shooting in the US, as I learned from the Wikipedia article “List of mass shootings in the United States” (defined as 4+ people shot and killed in one incident, excluding the perpetrator(s)). It is shocking to see how many mass shootings there have been! Even one would have been too many, but the list goes on and on.
March For Our Lives
When 14 students and three staff members were shot to death at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine’s Day 2018, the surviving students mobilized and started a youth movement for gun control. High school students all over the country organized the nationwide March For Our Lives, and I was proud to participate in that march in Sacramento, with my daughter Molly by my side because she was home on spring break from college. (See Takin’ It To The Streets.) I was sure that with their youthful enthusiasm and determination they would actually be able to have an impact and get some legislation passed. But the NRA’s influence was too strong even for them.
From March 2020 through January 2021, when the Covid-19 pandemic was in full force, there were only four mass shootings, with a total of six people killed. This was substantially fewer than in any other comparable period, so perhaps that’s a small silver lining to the pandemic cloud. In contrast, right after that, in the four short months that elapsed from February to May 2021 there have already been eleven mass shootings.
The shooting in San Jose on May 26, in which nine people were killed, as well as the shooter, was the impetus for this prompt. I am sure that everyone on this site is in favor of gun control, so I won’t preach about it, but I wonder how we will ever achieve it. The people who object to the government regulating their guns don’t seem to have a problem with driver’s licenses, so maybe gun licenses should work the same way, with a written test and “behind the wheel” test required, and severe penalties for having a gun without a license.
Suzy
First, Suzy, thanks for the earworm of a song title title — which can only properly be sung with a southern drawl, of course. (“Cain’t” for “can’t,” for example.)
More substantively, thank you for both this somber prompt and your excellent, if depressing, story on gun violence over the years. As I noted in response to Betsy’s story, I am pessimistic about gun control legislation being enacted, and obviously don’t want another pandemic in order to cut down on the carnage.
That said, good for you and Molly for participating in the March for Our Lives. The perfect title and I also loved the poster shown in your photo of it. At the least, we must keep fighting this good fight!
The song has been running through my head all week. “I’m quick on the trigger with targets not much bigger than a pinpoint I’m number one, but my score with a feller Is lower than the cellar, oh you can’t get a man with a gun.”
As it should, your last paragraph sums it up succinctly, Suzy…if only.
Yes, if only.
I wish we had a different attitude in America about guns, but at this point I don’t think outlawing guns would be either possible nor effective. I’ll comment more in my own submission. I love your comments, though.
Thanks Jeff. Looking forward to reading your story!
The Dale Evans picture is priceless, if painful to reflect on now. The story about your father and the gun in the drawer reminded me of a time years ago when we stayed in a somewhat seedy converted old house in the New Orleans French Quarter, with a Mrs. Underhill proprietor; when we paid her in advance, she opened up her desk drawer in the office to show us the pistol she kept, in case anyone thought of robbery. I certainly related to your description of these past years of guns in our lives.
Thanks for your comment, Khati. I do wish I had a picture of myself in the Dale Evans outfit, I wouldn’t find it painful. As others have said repeatedly, those were simpler times.
It is stunning isn’t it Suzy, that after Sandy Hook and Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the Charleston church and Pittsburgh synagogue shootings, the gun lobby and the 2nd Amendment mis-interpretors keep winning the fight while people keep losing their lives.
It IS stunning, Dana, that’s exactly the right word. Somehow we have to figure out how to turn things around.
Great story, Suzy, and I’m impressed that you and Molly went on the March. I really like the idea of gun “road tests,” licenses, and insurance. Here in San Jose we’ll be watching what happens with the gun insurance ordinance and how it’s written and whether it passes. If something good were to come out of the San Jose mass shooting, at least it would be a tiny consolation.
Thanks, Mare. You know me, I go on every march that’s for a cause I believe in, and it’s an added bonus when Molly is home and I can take her with me. Hope that San Jose takes this step and maybe others will follow.
I love your title song too, Suzy (of course I do), but your story is too familiar and so depressing. I remember the day of the Sandy Hook shooting so well (Dec 14, 2012). I was in the gym as the story broke, then lunch with the new Rose director. We were just stunned. Every mass shooting is horrible, but that one really got to me. Sandy Hook really got to me also because the shooter had Asperger’s and those of us in that community all feared there would be a backlash against our own children, who typically are not violent or psychotic.
Bravo to you and Molly for marching against gun violence. If only we could convince our fellow countrymen of their dangerous ways. I like your idea of making gun ownership like driving. a car. Why not?
I knew you would love the song. Great show (with an alto in the leading role). And more pleasant to think about than all the mass shootings. The gun licensing requirements=driver’s license requirements was not an original idea, I have seen people talk about it on fb. Wish it would catch on, but the NRA probably wouldn’t even go for that.
Suzy, I totally agree with you but have no idea how to get there. It’s so depressing, and there are so many guns out there. Interesting that you were never curious about seeing your father’s gun. And by the way, I loved that song and now it’s stuck in my head!
You’re welcome for getting the song stuck in your head! As I just said to Betsy, more pleasant to think about that show than all the mass shootings we have had.
Glad we did this prompt, even though I was dubious at the outset.
Love the idea of insurance. Maybe coupled with legislation that provides for absolute liability to the gun owner for any damage done with the weapon regardless of who the shooter is. Having worked in the insurance industry (life only) in Hartford I know the Hartford Steam Boiler Insurance & Inspection company. Back in the day when steam boilers proliferated and boiler explosions were commonplace the company came to life. Note that the co name included “inspection”; in underwriting a risk the company inspected the boiler. Once insurability was at issue and the amount of premium depended on the condition of the boiler the incidence of explosions dropped dramatically. Here’s hoping.
That’s an interesting tidbit about insurance, Tom. I wasn’t the one who suggested gun insurance, but it seems like a good idea.
A powerful survey, Suzy, thoughtful and reflective. I took note of how naturally you responded to guns as a child. Who would ever need to think of them unless they were dependent on a gun for food? I also thought your drivers’ license analogy might work very well but, like our planet’s accumulated toxicity (in which we took out of the earth what should have remained inside), I wonder what we would do with the accumulated lethal junk. Nicely done and thanks for your thoughts.
Thanks, Charlie. I wonder if it was natural that I never thought about guns until Columbine. Except for those shooting games on the midway at the State Fair, but I never played them, I just watched other people. More on that, perhaps, on the State Fair prompt.
I think the Columbine shooting was compounded: 1) they were kids; 2) they had a plan; 3) they’d developed a mass psychopathy seemingly based on violent video games. See you at the State Fair!