“You should strap on your gun before you leave your house, the same way you put on your seatbelt before you drive your car.”
I was at a shooting range when the range manager said this to me and the other people waiting in the lobby. He made the statement as if he were sharing obvious common sense, like look both ways before crossing the street. Perhaps worried that we were too naïve for common sense, he went on to explain that guns protected us and our loved ones from the constant threat of armed bad people the same way seatbelts protected us from bad drivers.
I was surprised that the range manager felt the need to share his unsolicited advice. You would think that if we were in a shooting range, we were already converts. It was like asking members of a church if they’d heard the good news about Jesus. He was preaching to the choir.
Perhaps he sensed (correctly) that some of us were not true believers. Going to a shooting range was not a normal activity for me. I didn’t own a gun and I still don’t. My father managed to live to be ninety-five without ever owning one. I’m sure the range manager would say it was just dumb luck that my father survived that long without a firearm to protect him, but that there was still hope for me to see the light.
Research was the reason for my visit to the range. I was working on my first novel, American Judas, and there was a pivotal scene where the protagonist shot and killed someone with a handgun. I certainly wasn’t going to shoot someone to make sure I got the scene right, but I hadn’t touched a gun in forty years and wanted to reacquaint myself with what it felt like to fire one.
I asked a friend who was a gun owner to help me out. We got along even though we disagreed about gun control. We both believed in gun safety, but he felt it was a personal choice and I thought that there should be federal regulations attached to gun ownership.
We met at his favorite shooting range, where he let me fire his Springfield XD 9mm handgun. He brought an extra pair of shooting goggles to protect my eyes from what he called “hot brass;” the shells that fly out of the gun when it’s fired. Those shells can burn you and you definitely don’t want them hitting your eyes. My friend also brought an extra pair of earmuffs to protect my ears from the deafening sound of gunfire.
I enjoyed shooting at targets that day. The Springfield XD had almost no recoil. The rifles I had shot decades earlier at summer camp were hard to aim, and I often missed the target entirely, but aiming with this gun was a breeze. I hit the target every time, including a bullseye.
As we took turns firing the handgun, my friend tried to talk me into getting a gun. He boosted the virtues of gun ownership, pointing out the people of all ages, and walks of life at the range, and that it was clear everyone got along. My friend explained that their mutual respect was established from the knowledge that their fellow citizen was armed.
I wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince; me or himself.
I did see people young and old, men and women, white and BIPOC, treat each other as if they were old friends as they admired each other’s firearms, but I wondered if this neighborly behavior would continue outside of the shooting range. And even if it did, I didn’t believe civil society was based on the mutual fear of fellow citizens carrying deadly weapons.
On the other hand, I admired my friend and the shooting range’s devotion to gun safety. The range had a clearly posted list of safety rules and offered classes. Along with bringing goggles and earmuffs to protect my eyes and ears, my friend lectured me on the proper way to handle a gun. After we were done shooting, he advised me to wash my hands and face with the Lava soap (regular soap wasn’t strong enough) in the range’s bathroom to remove debris that he said might cause lead poisoning.
When the evening ended, my friend and I said our goodbyes, I left the range (without a gun), got into my car, and put on my seatbelt. I put it on because I take car safety seriously, I need something that will be more effective than praying I won’t get into an accident, and because the United States has had seatbelt laws since 1968.
While my friend and the shooting range practiced gun safety, in most states it’s not required by law. California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Washington require completing a safety training course before you can get a license to carry a gun. According to the National Library of Medicine, Connecticut had fewer gun-related homicides after implementing this requirement.
Gun safety laws will not eliminate all gun deaths. There will always be people using guns for bad intent. The guy consumed with road rage firing his gun at the car that cut him off in traffic doesn’t care about hot brass or lead poisoning. And despite cars being heavily regulated, there will always be bad drivers, like the guy with road rage. With the exception of New Hampshire, every state has a law requiring drivers wear their seatbelt when driving. But while seatbelt laws don’t prevent all car fatalities, the National Safety Council has data proving that seatbelts greatly reduce them.
I live in Georgia, the site of the most recent school shooting, which has very weak gun laws. There is little to no accountability. Georgia lawmakers’ argument that gun ownership is protected by the Second Amendment and so can’t be regulated doesn’t make sense. The First Amendment protects free speech and yet there are legal consequences to speech. You can’t shout “fire” in a crowded theatre.
There are situations where having a gun saved the day, like in 2019 in Blaine, Kentucky, when a fourteen-year-old girl fired a 9mm handgun at an intruder trying to break into her home. In contrast, there are situations where having a gun proved tragic, like in 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee, when a woman searching for her keys in her purse. Among the items in her purse was a loaded gun and she accidentally caused it to fire. The bullet went through the purse and killed the woman’s thirteen-year-old daughter. Currently, the police have filed no charges against the mother.
Leaving gun safety to the discretion of individuals doesn’t work. If we could trust people to always do the right thing we wouldn’t need traffic lights, driver’s licenses, and a minimum drinking age. Laws give society guidelines and accountability. For those who claim that too many gun laws are a slippery slope that will end up with the government taking away their guns, too few gun laws have taken us to the bottom of the other side of the slippery slope. According to NPR, in 2023, more than 42,967 people died from gun-related deaths and over half of them were suicides.
The range manager can preach all he wants but strapping on a gun before you leave your house is not the same as putting on a seatbelt before you drive your car. Unless you live in New Hampshire, everybody is required by law to put on a seatbelt. Not everyone is required to carry a gun. Everyone should wear a seatbelt. Not everyone should carry a gun. A gun is not a seatbelt. One is specifically designed to take lives, and the other is specifically designed to save them.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
