Why I Don’t Own a Gun Anymore

The level of the debate on social media – specifically, Facebook – has been driving me crazier than usual.  You see a thousand mindless slogans pasted on a thousand “borrowed” pictures for every simple fact or thoughtful argument.  I’m beginning to doubt whether there enough open minds left in the US to have a productive discussion.  But I will stretch my optimism to its outer limits and hope that there are, and contribute what I can, and limit my responses to the endless parade of memes to a simple “This is not conducive to meaningful dialogue.”

I have owned several guns in the past, and know how to use them.  I don’t have any particular fear or attraction to them, but I don’t have one anymore and don’t have any desire for one.

Guns, of course, are strongly intertwined with US culture.  We used them to create and defend the nation, we used them to expand it – largely through near-genocide committed against the native inhabitants – and we used them and a number of related weapons to become a global power.  We have also used them as tools for harvesting food and protecting our domestic animals against wildlife.  The right to own a gun is enshrined in our constitution, just like the right to free speech. But it’s not a requirement, and there are legitimate arguments both for and against actually owning one.

In my case, the arguments against are the more reasonable.  By examining the arguments for ownership, I’ll try to outline my reasons for not owning.

1.  A gun can be used for hunting and providing food.  Probably the most persuasive argument for owning a gun.  And I can actually fire a rifle or shotgun and hit a target.  But my aim, while not bad, is not spectacularly good, either, and my accuracy falls off with a moving target.  Since I have no desire to cause undue suffering for any animal that I might choose to prey on for food, I would basically be limited to firing upon an animal standing stock still within a certain range.  Since I calculate the prospects of that situation occurring to be fairly low, I choose not to hunt.

2. A gun can be used for personal protection.  Certainly the most common argument for ownership, but nothing like as persuasive as the case for hunting.  What kinds of personal protection does a gun afford?  You can keep one in your home to ward off intruders.  I’m starting off with the best argument here, because one can think of scenarios where this is actually likely to work.  Even if you are safety minded and keep the gun in a locked cabinet, or have a trigger lock, this could still be feasible, provided you aren’t taken by surprise.  Even if the intruder is also armed, it could still work.  There are some problems with keeping a gun in the home, though, particularly if you have small children or people prone to depression in your home.  I choose to keep a pair of dachshunds instead.  They’re not very fearsome, but there’s always a chance that an intruder will trip over them in the dark.  Seriously, I don’t find this reason personally compelling because I live in a neighborhood that is not in town and also not isolated; it’s an unlikely target, it’s not as easy of access as other houses, and it does contain a pair of noisy dogs.  But I can understand why some people might want to keep one for in home personal protection.  How about outside the home?  How likely is it that a gun will afford you protection in the streets?  Let’s look at a scenario.  You’re walking on the street late at night and someone confronts you with a gun and demands your wallet.  My response in this case would be to give the thief my wallet, but it’s not because I have failed to bring my gun with me; it’s because my wallet has nothing irreplaceable in it.  No damage is done by giving up my wallet that can’t be dealt with.  My response would be the same even if I was carrying a concealed gun, because the thief already has his gun in his hand and pointed at me. My chances of drawing a gun and killing or disabling him before he kills or disables me are essentially zero.  Why would I try that to protect my wallet?  My wallet is on its own, as far as I’m concerned.  Okay, what if someone is just looking to kill me for personal reasons?  I would assume that such a person would do pretty much as I would in such a case; catch me unaware and kill me before I had any chance at all to defend myself.  Gun or no gun makes no difference.  Well, what if I’m just confronted by a really big huge guy who wants to beat me up?  I’m not going to pull a gun on him; I’m going to either attempt to beat him to the punch, or avoid the situation in some way, or just plain old get beaten up.  I can’t figure any likely situation in which carrying a gun would be of any real use.  I can make up all sorts of situations where it would save me, or borrow them from detective thrillers, but none of them are likely in real life, and more to the point – even the ones that are possible aren’t all that likely.  At 61 years old, I’ve never been in a situation where I wished I had a gun.  So why bother to purchase and maintain something that presents some actual danger to me or my household in order to deal with imagined or unlikely dangers in which it is only marginally likely to be of any use?

3. A gun preserves our liberty against a tyrannical government.  That’s true enough, as long as the tyrannical government doesn’t maintain any army or police forces.  Governments like that are a piece of cake to overthrow.  Your standard issue tyrannical government, though, usually has some very large and well-equipped forces defending it. Your best bet here is non-violent resistance.  It gives you the moral high ground, gets outside countries on your side, and doesn’t result in slaughtering a lot of people (although it doesn’t guarantee your personal survival, either).  Generally, your own personal arsenal isn’t much use, even if you have a lot of similarly armed friends.  It will work in some cases, though, although not always (or even often) with a good replacement government as a result.  As you might guess, I find this argument kind of laughable, and think it is more the result of a combination of paranoia and media influenced machismo than thoughtful deliberation.

4.  A gun helps defend our country against other countries and terrorists.  Let’s start with the terrorists, because we have some actual statistics to back that up.  Number of terrorists stopped by civilians carrying guns: 0.  Number of terrorists stopped by unarmed civilians: 6.  Okay, then, what about other countries?  Well, our own army and national guard has quite a stockpile of weapons, so we can probably use those if need be.  No need to maintain a bunch of separate armories.

So, I don’t feel any need to own a gun.  But I can understand that they could be useful to some people, in terms of personal protection.  And I agree that in general, the right to bear arms is protected in the constitution.  But that right can be regulated just as free speech and other constitutionally guaranteed rights are.  If we can start the debate from that point, I think we might be able to get somewhere.