Up In Arms

So, Del and Sandi, you got me thinking about women and guns--enough that I figured it merited a separate posting. (And, Malcolm, to answer your question: Bridal showers are basically an excuse to get a second round of wedding gifts from your female friends, though this round consists mostly of sexy lingerie and spa certificates and other things you couldn't really put on your registry without feeling selfish or offending an older relative).
Back to guns. Sandi's right. I have been out of Texas awhile. New York used to be one of the most dangerous cities in the world. But today the FBI considers it the country's safest big city; and crime has dropped dramatically in all five boroughs for 15 years in a row. Even if you wanted to have a gun for self-defense, it's very difficult to get a carrying permit--a priviledge usually reserved for law enforcement officials and owners of high-risk or oft-targeted businesses like upscale jewelery shops.
Even getting a gun to keep in your home is a multi-step process that involves paying $300, filling out a stack of papers, then waiting several months for an application before you can even buy a gun. Once you've got the go-ahead, you have to buy the gun within 30 days or your license expires and you have to go through the process all over again. Then, after you've signed the bill of sale, you have 72 hours to return to the License Division at 1 Police Plaza to have the gun inspected and its serial number entered on your gun license. Gun owners in New York are required to have a trigger lock on their gun and a fingerprint and background check on file, but they are not required to learn how to operate a gun before they buy it. And, as I learned when I read a first person account of a New York magazine reporter's experience buying herself a Kimber .45 and learning how to use it, there's only one training range open in Manhattan (West Side Rifle & Pistol Range) and it costs at least $400 to join for two years.
But it's not the bureaucratic b.s., or the cost of the gun, license, and training, that's kept me from investing in a firearm. It's fear. Rationally, I know that an increase in gun ownership will not necessarily result in an increase of accidental shootings.
But I've seen the results of an accidental shooting, and it was enough to put me off guns for the 20 years since. My good friend in grade school once showed me a scar that ran halfway across her belly. When I asked what happened, she told me she'd been shot. Now, keep in mind, this was at a private school in the suburbs and the only association I'd had with guns until then was with cops and criminals. I'm not sure I even realized then that "regular people" owned guns and legally. I couldn't imagine why they would. (I was young enough that I still hadn't made the connection between the cows I saw grazing in the pastures when we drove through rural Texas and the hamburgers I ate at McDonald's; hunting, to me, seemed like an archaic activity from the days when cowboys and Indians roamed the range).
Melissa had been shot by her uncle accidentally as he and her father--and I'm not making this up--were wrangling over the gun during an argument about the sensibility of keeping guns in the house. During the struggle, the gun (which her uncle had thought was not loaded) went off. And Melissa escaped death, literally, by an inch.
Three years later, after I'd learned where burgers came from, I stopped eating red meat altogether (another anomoly in Texas). Later, I heard the startling, and still controversial, statistic that a gun in the home is 22 times more likely to be used to kill a family member or friend than to kill in self-defense. That was enough to convince me that not only did I not need a gun in my house, but it might actually be more dangerous to have one.
That definitely put me among the minority in Texas. Down in Texas, guns are a fashion accessory. And gun racks are as common as bottle holders in Texas trucks (well, at least, when I lived there and there was no open container law--even while driving).
But as I moved around the country, I found I was now in the majority--especially in New York City, land of the liberals, where you're more likely to see a samurai sword in someone's home than a gun. While this city is accepting of almost any lifetsyle choice--from gay parenting to group sex (protected, of course in this post-AIDS era)--gun ownership for citizens is a topic I've never heard broached.
There are times, though, that I wonder if it wouldn't be worth learning how to shoot a gun, even if I don't buy one, if for no other reason than to face my fear. Of course, there is the danger that learning how to fire a gun might stir other fears: of becoming too trigger-happy (What if I enjoy it?) or, as the author of the New York article wrote, of actually having to use it one day. Even if it's in self-defense, having a gun ups the ante. If you're not quick enough, your target could fire first and you could be dead. And if you are quick--well, then you could be a murderer.