Editor’s note: This commentary is by Bill Agnew, of Charlotte, an arborist who works with all manner of trees. He is a member of the NRA and Gun Owners of America.
[W]hen my son was around 9 years old I purchased his first rifle for him — a wonderful, and very Vermont, rite of passage. The one I got him was semi-automatic with a 25 round detachable magazine. Probably no one was more surprised by this than me. Approximately 40 years earlier I’d crossed that milestone myself. My first rifle was bolt action. Its magazine held seven rounds, it had a wooden stock, and while not too heavy it was a tad long for my young frame. I wish I still owned it — it would be a good fit now.
So what was I thinking? Turns out, Generation X ran smack into a Millennial mindset. At 9, my son was already ” familiar” with guns — through video games. Guess what interested him when it came to getting a real one — something with AR-15 lines was definitely preferred. Faced with forcing him to adopt my generationally dated best-first-rifle ideal, and with still vivid memories of my first bike — a traditionally styled Schwinn chosen by my father when what I really pined for was monkey bars and a banana seat, I chose to meet my son where he was at.
Not a bad choice as things turned out. Made with modern materials the rifle is lightweight, has excellent sights (easily detachable if a scope is added), and the collapsible stock quickly adjusted down to pint-sized arm length. It’s also fun to shoot — just because it holds 25 shots doesn’t mean you need to load it to capacity. We started loading one round at a time into the magazine. Of course he wanted more, providing a built-in incentive for a graduated release of responsibility as his familiarity with the fundamentals of marksmanship grew. Alas, as a teenager now he’s as ambivalent about guns as most of his other urban pals (I notice they’re still playing video games). The thought of hunting and actually killing an animal is as foreign to him as wanting to learn Urdu in spite of the lifetime hunting license I purchased for him while he was still in diapers. We still break out his rifle and shoot from time to time, but it’s usually at my suggestion not his. Other things seem more interesting for him at this stage in his life. One thing I do know — having completed hunters safety training program with flying colors, he’s one teenager who actually knows something about real gun safety.
Lately it’s trendy to hate on semi-automatic firearms. While understandable on an emotional level, and politically as a way of appealing to a certain segment of the electorate, is there any merit to the approach on a practical level?
Semi-automatic pistols came into use in the early 1900s, and the loathsome “assault rifles” so much in the news appeared as a genre towards the end of the Second World War. The U.S. AR-15 was a Johnny-come-lately, not seeing widespread distribution until the 1960s (making it 60-year-old tech at this point). A quick inventory of my personal collection revealed roughly 45% falling into the semi-auto category. I don’t think I’m exceptional as a gun owner, so it seems to me the question boils down to whether it makes good sense to ban half of the guns I currently own in the name of public safety and the greater social good. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’m not convinced that it does.
Proponents of this approach want gun owners to remain stuck in the 19th century. In what other realm of modern life do we ask people to turn the clock back on two centuries of technological innovation? Unless you’re Amish, I doubt you’ll find any. It reminds me of the efforts of authoritarian governments trying to deny their citizens access to the internet in the 21st century. To a degree, manually operated firearms are going the way of the automotive clutch. Modern manufacturing processes favor semi-auto actions over older action styles requiring more labor intensive production methods. As with my son’s rifle, composite materials have replaced traditional ones like wood and steel. Semi-autos, depending on their design, absorb part of the recoil of discharge, often making them more pleasant to shoot than manual actions. And what consumer doesn’t want the newest “improved” version of anything? Marketing is a big factor in firearms manufacturers staying profitable, the same as any other business producing consumer goods. I wonder if the reason people aren’t calling for banning self-shifting transmissions is that nearly everyone owns a car. The advantages of not having to operate a clutch and accelerator in synchronicity are self-evident. It’s not so obvious to most non-gun owners the advantages self-loading firearms have over manual ones.
Lack of familiarity combined with raw emotion and a strong desire to “do something” can easily lead well- intentioned people astray. Media’s unending supply of sub-minute length information delivered with a sense of urgency breeds hysteria. Perhaps not surprising, then, that most Democratic presidential candidates offer banning and “buying back” semi-automatics as a panacea to the modern social dilemma of mass shootings. Taking a second, longer, look at the contents of my gun safe I remain skeptical that kind of solution is the answer to much of anything.
