Guns Are For Guys Who Don't Know How to Fight

The author, playing with fire.

We are all in deep trouble in this country because of a hobby.

People, mostly male, give all kinds of reasons that they need guns, but the truth is that the main reason is that they like them.

Several gun collectors of my acquaintance have said the best part of owning a gun is the way it feels to hold one. 

It’s also fun to shoot something with it. Happiness is indeed a warm gun.

I’ve tried several kinds of target shooting, and they were all diverting. But after each one, I was satisfied if I never got to do it again.

I suspect if everybody was like me, we’d have a lot fewer guns around.

Shooting sports might wind up like miniature golf. Nobody brings their own putter. You borrow one there. They give you a golf ball, too. 

A fancy putter from home won’t do a much better job getting that ball in the hole under the Eiffel Tower. A fancy gun won’t make you Annie Oakley, either. You might as well borrow one at the range.

Over 200,000 Illinois residents have permits to carry concealed guns when they go out among us. They get to touch their pistols anytime they feel the urge.

It is extraordinarily rare that these handguns are ever used for self-defense. 

Their main purpose seems to be to give the gun owner confidence. Guns are for guys who don’t know how to fight.

A good guy with a gun almost never stops a bad guy with a gun. The bad guy has a head start, and he’s not going to give it up so you can shoot him. 

It’s really not necessary to have guns at home. I used to have three. The only time any of them were used for anything interesting was after a burglary. The thief pulled one in a tavern to make some kind of point and wound up in the penitentiary.

I covered Chicago suburbs for 28 years, and lots of residents told me they kept guns in their houses for home protection.

They didn’t seem to get much use of them. I only remember writing about two genuine home invasions in all that time. 

In 2011, a sneaky handyman let his gun-toting pal pretend to storm into a Glencoe customer’s house, where he stole some jewelry and ordered a woman to wire money to him. Both men went to jail.

The same year, a pediatrician walked through an unlocked door in Skokie, and held a pistol on his wife’s boyfriend while he pummeled him with his other hand. He was locked up, too, and they confiscated his gun collection. A few years later, he was back in the baby doctor business.

In each case, the situation would likely have become much worse if the homeowner was armed. And not necessarily for the criminals.

I can’t remember anyone defending their home with a gun in all that time. Members of households did shoot each other, and themselves, however. I doubt many of those homicides and suicides would have actually occurred if they just had knives, poison or hatchets around the house. 

With no guns, attempts at suicide often fall short. It’s harder than you might think to end your life using razor blades, pills, plastic bags and such unless you have a medical degree.

When guns are used for suicide, they’re almost always successful. And there’s no changing your mind once the trigger is pulled. Bullets go fast.

Less than one-half of one percent of Illinoisans own guns. Sixty-six percent of Montanans and Wyomingites do.

They say they want to hunt. Fine, but I’m betting that most of their food still comes shrink-wrapped.

There are people in Montana and elsewhere who insist they have guns for rank-and-file response in case evil jerks take over the United States. 

These people must not know how cruise missiles work.

Trying to keep any guns out of the hands of teenagers is like talking Sandy Alomar’s sons out of trying out for the high school baseball team. If you’re brought up by a father who insists gunplay is a cool part of growing up, you’re going to find a firearm somehow. Usually, it’s in your parents’ bedroom closet. 

It’s a good idea to deny guns to kids and nuts, and to ban assault rifles, bump stocks and big magazines from use by anyone. It’ll cut down on the rate of extinction of all those dangerous elementary school children, shoppers and church-goers.

Keep in mind, however, that we can kill multiple humans relatively quickly with any firearm capable of dispensing appropriately beastly ammunition. 

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

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