Better ways to save your life than guns
Karin Winegar
Published April 18, 2003 WINE18
I am really, truly baffled by this one -- the concealed-carry gun proposal, that is.
My father makes, trades and collects guns as a hobby, and I grew up shooting cans at the gravel pit or walking the newly harvested rows of corn carrying a .12 gauge with him -- the early morning walking through wide, still beauty was the point, really, not the pheasants, ducks or the deer he brought home.
At summer camp up North, I adored shooting class, lying prone with an old bolt action single shot rifle and firing into bull's-eye targets in the woods. The little NRA medals are still in my jewelry box: Marksman First Class, Sharpshooter, Sharpshooter First Class, Bar I, Bar II and on down the ranks of bronze, silver and gold.
I find trap shooting a real thrill. Aim, swing, follow, breathe, squeeze. There is grace in the sport and the satisfying pulverization of a clay pigeon as it flies.
And I admire the beauty of wood grain gun stocks, the blue-black finish of the barrels, the floral scrollwork, the heft and balance of a fine pistol or rifle.
But I really can't see why anyone -- especially in Minnesota -- can show a well-substantiated need to carry a gun. We are not pioneers plowing the field with our black powder rifle leaning on a nearby stump, after all. And we have long since given up our need to shoot dinner.
There are concealed-carry laws in 23 states and more are pending. Minnesota is one of them. In the roiling fear compounded daily by nonstop bad news, even Minnesota, a heavy hunting state, may become an equally well-armed handgun state.
But why? Of the 50 states, Minnesota is 42nd in aggravated assaults, 38th in burglaries, 36th in robberies, 35th in vehicle theft, 35th in murder, 29th in larceny/theft. It is, I note, sixth-highest in rape, which may say something about Minnesotans' willingness to report rape, a notably underreported crime, as well as the comparative numbers of rapes.
In Minnesota, violent crimes have dropped from 359 in 1994 to 280 in 2000. One might conclude that the so-called personal protection law up for consideration in the Legislature is not in response to actual threat but to collective jitters about something else altogether.
Widespread permission for anyone but police to carry firearms is just a plain bad idea. On any given Saturday summer night, my neighborhood is punctuated by drunken howls and speeding cars of young guys partying. Add semiautomatics to the mix of hormones, alcohol, bad judgment, protracted immaturity and a childhood spent marinating in violent video games, and what do you suppose we will have?
And no matter how Schwarzeneggerish it makes us feel, a .38 or a 9-millimeter or even an AK-47 are not much protection against anthrax, smallpox, suicide bombers and nuclear radiation. They are not much protection against heart disease, either, which is the chief killer of Americans (270 per 100,000), or cancer (203 deaths per 100,000) or diabetes (25 deaths per 100,000).
Carrying a handgun is an 18th-century solution to a 21st-century anxiety. We are scared and angry, yes, but a .357 will not make my 401(k) bounce back to its once-robust self or bring back the people who died in the World Trade Center towers. And it is really useless against drought, flood and famine.
Want to save your life? Carry sun block, not sidearms. Melanoma is a real threat (7,400 deaths in the United States last year and a 160 percent increase in middle and older white males over the last three decades). Or stay out of cars: 43,200 Americans died in car accidents last year.
Want to live longer? Get married: Married men live years longer.
And if I may be frank, a condom provides better security than a Colt: AIDS/HIV is the leading cause of death for black American men 25 to 44 years old and the third-leading cause of death for black women in the same age group.
Want to deter bad guys in other countries from committing mayhem here? Eliminate the fury and discontent bred of poverty -- what author Thomas L. Friedman calls "the hanging around guys," the unemployed and hopeless young who need a mission and find it in fundamentalism. However quick and easy and macho it seems, a Beretta in your belt won't do that.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/3832552.html
Karin Winegar
Published April 18, 2003 WINE18
I am really, truly baffled by this one -- the concealed-carry gun proposal, that is.
My father makes, trades and collects guns as a hobby, and I grew up shooting cans at the gravel pit or walking the newly harvested rows of corn carrying a .12 gauge with him -- the early morning walking through wide, still beauty was the point, really, not the pheasants, ducks or the deer he brought home.
At summer camp up North, I adored shooting class, lying prone with an old bolt action single shot rifle and firing into bull's-eye targets in the woods. The little NRA medals are still in my jewelry box: Marksman First Class, Sharpshooter, Sharpshooter First Class, Bar I, Bar II and on down the ranks of bronze, silver and gold.
I find trap shooting a real thrill. Aim, swing, follow, breathe, squeeze. There is grace in the sport and the satisfying pulverization of a clay pigeon as it flies.
And I admire the beauty of wood grain gun stocks, the blue-black finish of the barrels, the floral scrollwork, the heft and balance of a fine pistol or rifle.
But I really can't see why anyone -- especially in Minnesota -- can show a well-substantiated need to carry a gun. We are not pioneers plowing the field with our black powder rifle leaning on a nearby stump, after all. And we have long since given up our need to shoot dinner.
There are concealed-carry laws in 23 states and more are pending. Minnesota is one of them. In the roiling fear compounded daily by nonstop bad news, even Minnesota, a heavy hunting state, may become an equally well-armed handgun state.
But why? Of the 50 states, Minnesota is 42nd in aggravated assaults, 38th in burglaries, 36th in robberies, 35th in vehicle theft, 35th in murder, 29th in larceny/theft. It is, I note, sixth-highest in rape, which may say something about Minnesotans' willingness to report rape, a notably underreported crime, as well as the comparative numbers of rapes.
In Minnesota, violent crimes have dropped from 359 in 1994 to 280 in 2000. One might conclude that the so-called personal protection law up for consideration in the Legislature is not in response to actual threat but to collective jitters about something else altogether.
Widespread permission for anyone but police to carry firearms is just a plain bad idea. On any given Saturday summer night, my neighborhood is punctuated by drunken howls and speeding cars of young guys partying. Add semiautomatics to the mix of hormones, alcohol, bad judgment, protracted immaturity and a childhood spent marinating in violent video games, and what do you suppose we will have?
And no matter how Schwarzeneggerish it makes us feel, a .38 or a 9-millimeter or even an AK-47 are not much protection against anthrax, smallpox, suicide bombers and nuclear radiation. They are not much protection against heart disease, either, which is the chief killer of Americans (270 per 100,000), or cancer (203 deaths per 100,000) or diabetes (25 deaths per 100,000).
Carrying a handgun is an 18th-century solution to a 21st-century anxiety. We are scared and angry, yes, but a .357 will not make my 401(k) bounce back to its once-robust self or bring back the people who died in the World Trade Center towers. And it is really useless against drought, flood and famine.
Want to save your life? Carry sun block, not sidearms. Melanoma is a real threat (7,400 deaths in the United States last year and a 160 percent increase in middle and older white males over the last three decades). Or stay out of cars: 43,200 Americans died in car accidents last year.
Want to live longer? Get married: Married men live years longer.
And if I may be frank, a condom provides better security than a Colt: AIDS/HIV is the leading cause of death for black American men 25 to 44 years old and the third-leading cause of death for black women in the same age group.
Want to deter bad guys in other countries from committing mayhem here? Eliminate the fury and discontent bred of poverty -- what author Thomas L. Friedman calls "the hanging around guys," the unemployed and hopeless young who need a mission and find it in fundamentalism. However quick and easy and macho it seems, a Beretta in your belt won't do that.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/3832552.html
I guess I'll get rid of my guns since they can't protect me from cancer.
