I’m not a survivalist. I’m not a gun nut. I’m not a hunter. I’m
certainly not a terrorist.
I’m not ashamed, either.
And I didn’t buy it for self-defense. Nor do I plan on
carrying it anywhere but back and forth to the target range. If I was worried
about defending myself against an armed intruder, I’d follow the sage advice of
a friend who is a former Marine and scoot out the back door first if
possible.
Otherwise, like him, I’d have to ask the intruder to wait
awhile until I could retrieve my gun from its case and go to another place in
my house for my ammunition.
Going out the back door makes a lot more sense.
I also don’t believe just anyone who wants this gun – or any
other firearm for that matter – should be allowed to get one. There need to be rules about who can purchase
a firearm. Everybody I know who owns firearms is in complete agreement with
that.
Every single one. No exceptions.
It’s not about the 2nd Amendment; it’s about
common sense. Only a complete idiot thinks anybody should be able to get a
functioning firearm, regardless of their criminal past or mental state. The NRA
agrees there need to be reasonable restrictions.
Currently there are background checks. But they rely on
information on file. If no one takes
seriously and reports that someone has a mental illness, tortures small animals
for kicks, has been expelled from school for threatening people, talks about
killing classmates, and posts about desires to be a “professional school
shooter,” well, that won’t show up.
Just as it didn’t on the recent Florida school shooter’s
background check.
That’s the glaring flaw in background checks. The checks are
only as good as the source data provided to authorities. If you are a wife
beater and your spouse never reports it, it won’t show up. If a school
administration declines to alert authorities to a scary kid threatening his or
her classmates, it won’t show up. If
parents refuse to let police know their teen is stockpiling weapons and body
armor and searching for bomb-making instructions online, it won’t show up.
This is how people who should never get a firearm pass
background checks. Make no mistake,
there are checks and rules in place, but apathy and political correctness can
defeat them.
When I bought the parts to assemble my AR-15, before I could
pick up a critical component – which had to be shipped to a Federally licensed
dealer by law – I had to fill out a form and submit to a background check. That form required me to attest that I
was at least 18 years of age, had not committed a felony, had no history of mental
illness, no record of domestic abuse, and no history of abusing drugs or
alcohol, among other things. If there were any discrepancies between what I submitted and the government database I would be
denied that critical part.
Had I tried to buy a completed off-the-shelf AR-15, or any
other long gun, from a licensed dealer in Florida I would have had to go
through exactly the same process.
I did everything by the book.
I assembled all the parts with the help of a friend to
produce the finished gun. It wasn’t
difficult at all and took less than an hour.
And frankly that’s why the AR-15 is the most popular long
gun in America.
Not because it’s got a military heritage for Rambo
wannabes. Not because it’s considered an
“assault weapon” by some. Not because it is deadly – which of course it can
be.
The real reason is because it’s so easy to build and
maintain. It’s like a Lego gun – all the parts
snap together, and easily snap apart for cleaning. Another reason is there are
so many AR-15-type rifles out there manufacturers of such things as scopes,
magazines, and other accessories offer a lot of easily installed options at
competitive price points.
It’s also an accurate gun with very little recoil. Since I bought and built mine exclusively for
target practice at a range nearby, that was important.
However, it has a nasty reputation, mostly because
AR-15-type rifles have been used in a number of mass killings, including the
Las Vegas massacre and most recently at the school in Florida where a nutjob
former student killed 17 people. The AR-15 has been described by some on the
left and promoted by the media as a weapon of war, designed exclusively to kill
people.
Because of that, when you tell some people you own an AR-15
they tend to shrink back a bit – as if there’s a side of you they never saw
before; perhaps something they should be afraid of.
Much has been made about how the AR-15 is a
“semi-automatic.” To some, that implies it’s a virtual automatic weapon, like a
machine gun. Semi-automatic really only
means that after you fire off a round by pulling the trigger, it just chambers
another round – so every time you shoot you still have to pull the trigger
again. You could pull the trigger
rapidly, of course, but I don’t and nobody I know does that, especially
shooting paper targets at 25, 50, 100 or more yards away.
Which is all I do with it. Well, okay, I shoot primarily at
25 and sometimes 50 yards. I’m a long
way from trying to hit a bullseye at 100 yards or more. I’ve only been at this
for about a year now; I’m getting better but not nearly good enough.
The reason I enjoy target shooting is not because I am very good
at it, which I’m not, but because – paradoxically, perhaps – it is more
relaxing than you might imagine. To be accurate you have to learn to
concentrate, monitor your breathing, loosen up, and focus intently.
There’s almost a Zen-like, meditative quality to it. That’s
what I like. Plus, my friend and I
always stop at Waffle House for breakfast on our way to the range.
A pecan waffle and meditation. Is that a perfect day or
what?
I also enjoy the camaraderie at the range. The people you
meet there are among the nicest you’ll encounter. Mostly middle-aged and older
guys; some former cops, many former military, and some, like me, just getting
started.
Everybody I’ve met there is incredibly helpful, courteous,
and focused on safety – far from how gun owners are often portrayed. I suspect
most if not all of them also support background checks and reasonable
restrictions on who can own a firearm. No one in their right mind wants
dangerous, mentally unbalanced people to have access to firearms.
But to prevent that, people need to step up and report bad
actors to the authorities, so background checks have the data they need.
Schools need to flag and report students with violent tendencies. Parents need
to swallow their pride and let someone know their child is a hazard to others. Mental-health professionals need to monitor their patients to see they stay on their meds. And of course neighbors and others need to have the guts to tell police when they see something that
disturbs them.
Until everyone does that, the wrong people will pass background
checks.
There are now more guns in America than people. There are
also more Americans than ever before. That also means there are more mentally
unbalanced people among us – more psychopaths, more sociopaths, and more people
with violent and homicidal tendencies, as our population grows; it’s the law of
big numbers at work.
Following the shootings in Las Vegas and Florida, it’s easy,
at a time like this, to blame the AR-15-type rifles and their wide
availability. It’s easy to blame the availability of 20-30-round magazines for
their role in these mass shootings.
There have been calls to ban both after almost every mass
shooting. Last night, some talking head
even suggested that one solution might be to put a heavy tax on
ammunition.
Everyone seems to be searching for an easy answer. I can’t
blame them.
It’s far harder to accept that the cause
of mass shootings has less to do with the weapon used, and more to do with
society’s reluctance to deal with the role of apathetic parents, timid school administrators
and mental-health professionals, and the fear of getting involved.
It’s also hard to accept that media coverage, and our
society’s obsession with fame, also contribute to mass shootings. The Columbine, Sandy Hook, Florida school,
and Las Vegas massacre as well, turned the perpetrators into
celebrities in a perverse way. That’s
what many of them wanted – fame. Notoriety. Slaughtering people was their path
to stardom.
My AR-15 had no role in that.
The millions of other AR-15s out there in the hands of
responsible owners didn’t either.
But parents, schools, mental-health professionals, and
neighbors did.
