Editor’s note: This commentary is by Gary Lee Miller, of Montpelier, a writer and teacher who is creative director of Writer for Recovery, which provides writing workshops for people recovering from addiction.
[I] shot my first gun at age 5. It was my dad’s .22 Marlin lever action rifle, and I used it to plink soda cans at our family camp in Pennsylvania. I hunted as soon as I was legally able in that state, at age 12. I asked for and received a Winchester Model 94 30-30 for my 16th birthday. I’ve spent a lot of enjoyable time with guns in my life, but the way we now think about and use guns is causing tremendous damage to our society. It’s time to enact more effective gun laws.
When I was a young man, the people around me had practical attitudes about guns. I don’t recall anyone saying they needed a gun for protection or to overthrow our government if it got too repressive. Guns were considered tools for outdoor sports, and they were worthy of respect and careful handling. No one needed to own one AR-15, much less dozens of them.
Since then, a slick, aggressive, and well-funded campaign by the NRA has terrorized gun owners into believing that without guns to protect them, they and their families will die. For those who have bought the NRA marketing, danger is all around. Brown-skinned thugs and Muslim terrorists are always lurking, ready to strike — and when they do, only armed citizens can save the day. Even our government is suspect. We need vast stockpiles of guns to fight back in case America turns into the Soviet Union. And any gun regulations will inevitably result in the revocation of the Second Amendment.
The truth is that hunters and sport shooters across America are being sold a paranoid fantasy by well-paid liars.
Those who believe they need a gun to protect themselves from rapidly rising crime are misinformed. In America, violent crime is dropping almost everywhere. In fact, it has dropped 48 percent between 1993 and 2016.
Those who believe that guns make their homes safer are ignorant of the research proving that guns cause more crime than they prevent and that having a gun in their homes makes them more likely to be killed or injured.
Those who believe they need semiautomatic long guns to defend themselves from our government have little understanding of history and modern warfare. Our government has been changing hands, regularly and peacefully, for nearly 250 years. And consumer firearms, even the vaunted AR-15, would be utterly useless against the U.S. military.
Those who think that gun regulations will put an end to the Second Amendment ignore the fact that many of the proposed new regulations are or have been in place in various places across the country, with the Second Amendment remaining the law of the land. Further, the vast majority of Americans support the Second Amendment, even those who favor stricter gun laws.
The reality is that our love affair with guns causes over 30,000 deaths each year, from accidental shootings and suicides to domestic violence killings and mass shootings. And we could prevent many of those tragedies if only more gun owners would make reasonable concessions to safety. But they won’t — and that seems odd to me, based on the gun owners I have known.
Most gun owners I grew up with were — and are — good people. Many have served in our police forces or the military, putting their lives on the line to protect their fellow citizens. Many would do anything to protect a child from harm, up to and including taking a bullet. That’s why it’s so puzzling — and painful — to me that so many of them aren’t willing to endure the slightest inconvenience to help stop tragedies like Parkland and Sandy Hook.
And so I ask gun owners to look beyond the NRA fantasy and help end the slaughter of innocents by supporting more effective gun laws. If you are willing to make small sacrifices, we can help reduce the tragedies inflicted by guns while still allowing for the right to enjoy hunting and shooting sports. Together, we can make gun-related tragedies less likely.
