ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 25, 1996 TAG: 9602280029
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ELIZABETH STROTHER EDITORIAL WRITER
"GUN GROUP" and "moderation" are words not often seen in the same headline. But then, Ernest Lissabet is in a distinct minority of organized, politically active gun owners.
His 2-year-old American Firearms Association favors modest restraints on firearms sales, unlike the hard-line National Rifle Association, which sees little need to ask questions of a gun buyer beyond, "How much ammo can I sell you with that?" Lissabet's AFA has about 750 members; the NRA, about 3 million.
But, as the Fairfax resident pointed out in a story published in this newspaper last Monday (``Gun group shooting for moderation"), there are about 65 million gun owners in this country. "Who speaks for the other 62 million?" he asked.
Not the NRA, I'm hoping. Surely there are many gun owners who support NRA goals without supporting the organization with their dollars. But there also are NRA members who don't share the more radical views of its leadership. And there are many gun owners who cherish their right to bear arms, but don't support the NRA in any way.
What their numbers are I don't know, but I do know they're out there, because I know a couple of them pretty well. Well enough to ask them how it feels when they kill Bambi's mom, and get a gentle chuckle in reply - as if they haven't been ragged about that several hundred thousand times before. They're great guys.
One hunts, and the other collects guns and likes to target shoot. They're rural, Southern boys, one from a farm, the other from a small town. Guns have a totally different meaning in their lives than in mine, a cultural divide I doubt will ever disappear. I'm sure they won't lose their enthusiasm for guns, and I don't think I'll develop much. That's OK, though, because I don't want the government to take their guns away, and they don't think reasonable measures to protect public safety will lead to that.
My friend the hunter finds nothing wrong with a waiting period for buying a weapon. "If I have some reason to need a gun in a hurry, maybe I need to slow down," have a little cooling-off period. He can think of no reason automatic weapons should be legal. A hunter would need an automatic weapon only "if I need to compensate for my inability to shoot a gun." But he has a semiautomatic shotgun that is useful for hunting birds and rabbits.
Both of these men are cautious, responsible gun owners who have been around guns since they were children, whose handling and use of guns is a natural part of their lives.
Most of the guns my collector friend owns were handed down in his family. This shotgun was his father's, this rifle belonged to a grandfather. The hunter has been taking the two oldest of his four children, boys 10 and 8 years old, hunting with him, and has gone out a little with his 6-year-old daughter. He's trying to pass on to his children his knowledge and love of the outdoors, teach them the paramount lesson: "With a gun, you make a mistake, and it's a final mistake."
"I don't hunt to kill," he tells me. "As much, that's my opportunity to be in an area I'm not normally in, the outdoors. ... It's a great way to build friendships, expand my knowledge of nature, [gain] independence."
"I have never fished or hunted with an intent just to kill to be killing. We've got a big family, and we're all excited that I can hunt maybe as a food source, as well as recreation for me."
The only hunting I do is at the meat counter of my neighborhood grocery store. I not only don't want to shoot Bambi's mom, I don't want to eat the carcass. (Part of my family heritage: When my parents were newlyweds, Dad - a displaced Virginia farm boy himself - brought home rabbit from the grocery store. Once. Mother cooked it, served it, wouldn't eat it. The matter came up when I was a teen-ager; dismay and disbelief still crossed my father's face as he recalled: "She wouldn't even try it.")
It doesn't matter, though, whether I eat venison, enjoy hunting or want to shoot a gun. Many people do, and that is their right. I have no objections, as long as they know what they're doing. What I know about guns is that they're dangerous. True, the target-shooter says, "and that's part of the attraction, you understand. Being able to show you have the skill to handle this deadly force."
Fine. What I object to, as an advocate of gun control, is the insane notion that the more guns there are in people's hands, the safer society will be.
I recall a family that moved into the neighborhood where I grew up. They were good-hearted people; would do anything for you. The whole family was prone to disasters, though.
Their oldest boy was around my younger brother's age, and they were friends. The boy cut off his brother's big toe while mowing a neighbor's lawn. Another of his brothers hurt his hand badly when he got it caught in the wringer of his mom's washing machine. My sister, parking her car on the street out front one day, almost ran over the baby girl, who somehow had wandered off and ended up playing on the side of the road.
One day, my brother came home and told me his friend's parents kept a gun in their bedroom.
I didn't feel safer.
LENGTH: Medium: 92 linesby CNB