Jim Mitchem grew up around guns, was a marksman in the Air Force, and he has learned one simple truth about guns.
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I grew up around guns. My stepfather kept one in his car’s glove compartment. That is, until the night a drunken neighbor shot a policeman responding to a call. After that, everyone’s stepfathers kept their guns in closets.
For a while.
I got a BB gun for Christmas when I was 10, and remember going out with my uncle that day to hunt birds. He mustn’t have thought I could actually hit one, so off we went hunting birds in a field behind the Pick-N-Save near our house on Christmas Day. Within a few minutes I spotted my prize–a catbird in the brush. I centered him in my sights and squeezed the trigger. The bird disappeared. I ran over to where he was, and discovered him dead. I held the dead bird for a few minutes–staring into the hole in his eye. A few moments before, this creature was happily foraging for food. Then I shot him. My excitement turned to remorse, and I cried on the walk home. My uncle didn’t speak.
For a long time after that, I only shot at inanimate objects.
We lived all along the Gulf Coast, and once I got over the catbird situation, I honed my shooting eye by picking off lizards from rain gutters. Years later in East Texas, me and my friends would take our air rifles out into the bayous to hunt water moccasins. Reptiles were somehow expendable. One summer we killed hundreds of the treacherous vipers.
We thought we were doing a community service.
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After high school, I joined the USAF where they handed me an M-16 and told me to shoot at a target. I killed the target. Then they gave me a .38, and asked me to do it again. Same result. It turned out that I was a natural. And for four years of active duty, I was decorated as a marksman. It was kind of cool being the only one in the squadron who got the weapon with the live ammo during training exercises. That’s what we called them–weapons. We respected them as devices to kill. And from when I was 18 until 22, I was itching to kill. We all were. We wanted a common enemy. We were crazy, invincible, uneducated punks from the suburbs of big cities–and we wanted someplace to put our angst. Only, there was no war in the early 80s, and so we put our angst into partying.
When I got out of the Air Force, I wandered the planet like Caine in Kung Fu for five years, and never fired a weapon. But there were times when I definitely wanted to. I was complete mess. A penniless, nomad alcoholic. And if I had access to guns during that time, I’m pretty sure I would have used them. Probably on others. Definitely on myself.
Fortunately, the skies cleared when I turned 27, and my life’s been on a steady ascent ever since. I’m now free of a lot of baggage–including any desire to own or use weapons.
I understand that guns are an important part of American culture and history. And I understand why they’re important to so many people. I just don’t endorse them. I see them as devices to kill. Period. And, well, killing is bad.
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Not too long ago, a crazy person shot up a school and killed 20 kids. You know the story. We seem to go through it a few times a year in America when some crazy person uses guns to kill masses of innocent people. These crazy people almost never use garden shears or billy clubs. Sure, sometimes they use bombs. And they’ve even used planes. But mostly they use guns. Guns are accessible, easy to use, and compact enough to conceal. They’re perfect killing devices.
If you are crazy enough to kill masses of innocent people, and you can somehow convince people that you’re not crazy enough to kill masses of innocent people, then you can get your hands on some quality killing devices. Then you have a chance to be king of the world and get your picture all over the news. Who cares if you die? At least you’ll die with your boots on. And thanks to sensationalistic media, you’ll be remembered forever.
I don’t know how to process this thing. I hate guns. And I pity the insane. But you can’t ban insane people. I just want to move away to a Caribbean island where we can fish and eat bananas. Where I don’t have to think about having to fight fear with fear in a country where the answer to gunmen slaughtering children is more gunmen guarding them. The paranoid and patriotic among you will say, “But there is crime everywhere, Jim. And guns.” No shit. Thanks for the reminder. And thanks for dancing in the fresh blood of innocent victims to sing me a song about how the answer to the problem of gun crime is more guns, and that the second amendment is still relevant hundreds of years after its inception. You’re brilliant.
I had a dream last night that an idiot wanted to prove a point to me so he broke into my home, took my family at gunpoint, and tied us up in the living room. And as he pressed the muzzle of his Glock into my daughter’s temple, he said, “I bet you think differently about guns now, don’t you? Because if you had a one, you’d have used it to stop me.” To which I said, “No. You just help reinforce why there shouldn’t be any guns at all. Dick.” Then I shot lasers out of my eyes and smote him on our living room floor–leaving only a pool of raspberry jelly behind.
I thought I was doing a community service.
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This article originally appeared on Obsessed with Conformity
Photo credit: Getty Images
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Study history: Buddhist monks in China were pacifists yet they developed Kung Fu and steel weapons to protect themselves from the violence of the outside world. Japanese ninja began as peasant farmers who were oppressed by the ruling warlords and their military class samurai. They were forbidden to own weapons, so they fashioned their own out of farming tools. The Deacons For Defense And Justice were a black militia group formed in the 60s to protect people from violence because the cops wouldn’t or were part of the problem.
I am keeping my guns in order to perserve my freedoms and defend myself and my home. Remember Kent State? Nazi Germany? That’s what happens when only the government has guns.
Guns are devices to project a bullet. The target is the choice of the operator.
I bet you have a whole drawer full of sharp knives in your kitchen. They can be used to slice bread, apples, or they can be used to cut someone’s throat. Somehow the knives, axes, bludgeons and other (possibly) dangerous implements that most of us possess don’t have the political and cultural baggage that guns do so no one gets onto soap-boxes about them.
weapons are every where like most like to point out. But wouldn’t it be great if guns was one less thing to worry about..
It’s funny how those who talk about gun control never want it for cops or Federal Agents. Why do they need full-auto military weapons to “enforce the law” ?
How do you feel about Tasers? 9-11 could have been just another day if the passengers and crew on those planes had been allowed to carry them. All the hijackers needed was box cutters to kill thousands. Tim McVeigh didn’t need a gun to kill.
yes, guns are devices to kill. saw a movie yesterday named ‘no escape’. in the story a man, during a career lag, takes a middle management job in thailand for an american company to rebuild the water infrastructure. seems noble enough from his perspective. yes, the world bank and imf are behind it. politics aside, as the man, his wife and two young kids in tow arrive, a coup is under way. rebels and thugs run the streets with ak-47’s and machete, killing anyone not ‘them’, and anyone associated with the evil water company. that being the setting, the remainder… Read more »
I agree with Richard Aubrey. Guns are devices to kill?! Gosh darn it — never looked at it that way. Just glad that another one woke up…!
So are knives, bats, bricks, crow bars, 2×4’s, hands, feet, water, pillows and tooth picks ETC
with that being said wouldn’t it be great if guns were out of the picture it would be one less threat!!
How so? Massachusetts has about 100 gun homicides a year, 300 die in traffic collisions, and 1200 by overdosing on heroin. Object bans don’t work. Most gun homicides in the U.S. are related to gangs fighting over drug territories, both directly against each other and innocent bystanders in their communities — take those crimes out, and we have a gun homicide rate on par with Canada and Finland. Gun deaths have been cut in half over the last twenty years, during which we’ve generally relaxed the regulations on them. What we’re dealing with right now is a societal issue —… Read more »
To whom is this supposed to be news?
Guns are devices to protect your freedom. The 2nd Amendment was not put in the constitution for hunting or protection against criminals or for sport, but for the people to protect themselves from a tyrannical government. Every tyrannical government seeks to disarm its populace – the British before the revolution, the nazis, the communists. So unless your concerns address this issue, you are not having the right conversation about disarming the U.S. public.
Short of disarming the public, which I don’t support…we need to do something other than nod our heads about mental illness while not actually doing a darn thing to identify or stop these wackos. See back in the day firearms were tools. We used them for hunting, defense and where needed in the lawless landscape of the Wild West. This is 2015. I have to license my self to get married, or go fishing, but never to own or use a firearm. We glorify it now, it’s something we prance around in public with, show off and crow about how… Read more »
When you get a license to fish, get married, etc., the authorities are required to issue those licenses to everyone who meets the eligibility requirements. Most gun licensing schemes envision officials, usually officials insulated from the democratic process, to use lots of discretion when issuing those gun licenses. Not quite the same thing, is it?