Ah, the old
right to bear arms argument.
Tedious and contentious at best. Guns are
legal here in America; we have the highest innocents-killed-accidentally ratio in the world, outside of countries in which wars are actually being fought. Where’s the beef? You want to be
safe? Shut up and keep your head down would get the job done as well I suspect.
It’s the whole issue of buying guns that gets to me. Why aren’t we born with guns? If guns are an inalienable American right, maybe they should be issued at birth, along with those little knitted head-warmers that look so cute in the nursery. Pink revolvers for girls, blue automatics for boys (who for some reason will grow up doing most of the shooting and will need the firepower).
Consider another way to get guns for free: enlist in the military. They give you guns there. Cool ones. I had an M16A1 rifle (very chic when cruising into a service club, where you had to check your weapons at the door, like a dance hall in Dodge City in a movie). The M16A1 is fully automatic; you can get a magazine that holds 30 rounds, though you really only want to load 28--basically enough to kill a baseball team and its owner’s family.
I had an M79 grenade launcher--a thump gun--also a chic weapon with a stylish sling and a barrel diameter as big as a spaldeen--one of those pink rubber balls you city kids bang against your front stoop. The very destructive projectile you loaded into your M79, like a shotgun, breaking at the breech, resembled a little R2-D2. It’d kill any cluster-fuck of less-well-armed morons standing within thee or four hundred yards.
My favorite free weapon was the M60 Machine Gun. Very cool; portable; does a lot of damage in a very short time if you can carry enough ammo and allow for the fact that you are the first one the enemy will try to kill.
When three of us would pull bunker guard together all night, alternating marijuana smoking and sleeping in two hour shifts, we also had plenty of back-up firepower, which I notice not too many “buy a gun” advocates endorse. This, I believe, should be rethought. For absolute security, I cannot recommend enough the M26 Fragmentation Hand Grenade. If you can throw a baseball, you can kill a batter, a catcher, an umpire, and probably knock out a couple of the taller fans in a small National League park quite easily.
For those less athletically inclined, there’s one more sure-fire (ahem) bet: that would be the handy-dandy manually-electrically detonated M18A1 Claymore Mine. A nifty package of plastique explosive and lethal BB’s about the size of a best-selling novel that basically discourages just about anybody. From ever breathing again.
Free guns. Free food. Free clothes. A free college education if you don’t die. THAT’s an argument against buying a gun.
But that’s not what I’m really compelled to write about today. I am actually much more interested in the sorts of people you meet when buying a gun to call your own (if you’re too old or too cowardly to enlist).
________________
She had been kidnapped and raped by three men she knew. There was pot involved, as there often is. Alcohol, a sunny day, a trip to the beach, a piece of ass. She was fourteen years old. Each of them took a couple of turns. They didn’t hurt the dog.
I went insane. I wanted to kill those three cholo motherfuckers two times each. The people I met while buying my “piece” (an interesting homonym) are ultimately the reason I’m not doing time right now.
When you buy a handgun in California, you have to think ahead, cause there’s a waiting period. Or there used to be. Maybe with computers now they can check your raggedy ass out easier. In those days, though, it took fifteen days. So I stewed for a long time. Waiting for my piece.
I hung out in a very trendy gun shop in Santa Monica which was frequented by all the best people. Santa Monica’s a well-to-do burg; a man needs protection. The trouble is, you’re just as likely to bump into the guy who plans on holding you up (who is also doing some gun shopping) than you are to be able to buy your “perfect” protection.
Creeps hang out in gun shops. Even in Santa Monica. Unkempt men with furtive eyes. It’s like a porno book store with a different smell. The guys behind the counter are a Special Sort of Nerd. They count themselves expert in the art of lethal force. These ill-educated overly-verbose salesmen are the guys you have to depend on if you’re buying a gun for the first time. They are distinguished from my brothers in arms in Vietnam by the pistols they wear on their belts (for self-defense in their gun shop, obviously), and by the little 2-meter Ham Radios that also dangle there next to--frequently--their handcuffs and their mace. You must be careful when dealing with gun sellers:
They Will Neglect to Tell You That
—should you kill a man—
You Are Committing a Crime Against Your Self.
I think that’s important to note.
I had chosen a Ruger Speed-Six .357 magnum revolver in stylish, durable stainless steel. My reasoning was impeccable: I’d had automatic weapons jam on me in Vietnam. I was looking for good old-fashioned dependability. I didn’t want my lethal rhythm to be broken with a lot of fiddling and faddling about. Nothing looks odder to a passerby than a guy pointing a pistol at three “bad guys” and there’s no noise and no blood and no falling down. I wanted a good, classic revenge-style murder. That much I knew.
My revolver sat placidly in its original packaging while I waited. I returned frequently to the gun shop, hoping perhaps to catch a glimpse of the culprits (I have to keep myself from using the word “perpetrators” here. Too much TV violence on cop shows, don’t you think?) On the edge of the box on the shelf was my name, in two inch letters, in indelible black ink on masking tape. Buying a gun is a pretty public thing, so you want to think about dressing your best.
The names on the boxes were alphabetical: Alvarez, Fernandez, Gonzales, Jimenez, Limon, Melendez, Narcisco, Ramirez, riverrun.
Hmmm. In an upscale neighborhood on the west side of Los Angeles?
Where was Blum the producer? Goldstein, the writer? How come Feinberg, the venture capitalist down the street, wasn’t picking up a piece?
I was having a very bad feeling about my whole approach to killing cholos for revenge when a man walked in the door. He took six brisk steps towards the counter and hands flew to belts and holsters all over the store. The man stopped and declared:
“I want a gun to kill niggers!”
The fat gun nerd behind the counter relaxed and replied laconically:
"That’s what they’re for.”
Buy a gun. Kill a man. Tell me you feel good about it afterwards and I’ll call you a liar.
karfung says re
buy a gun your wu just sounds like a long and tedious rant that does not go anywhere, the title is not about killing a man, it is just about purchasing a firearm. i am requesting for this to be nuked."
karfung says how does
buy a gun automatically equate to kill a man? this just shows how you think about guns, not neccesarily of the other people.
Oh.
On Vietnam:
REMFS
- I was a prisoner in a Mexican Whorehouse
- A long time gone
- How to brush your teeth in a combat zone
- Libber and I go to war
- Fate takes a piss
- Thanks For the Memory
- Back in the Shit
- LZ Waterloo
- Saturday Night, Numbah Ten
grunts
Phantom
a long commute
Andy X Kirby True
a tale of two Woodstocks
Buy a Gun
Dawn at The Wall
Draft
Feat of Clay
Funeral Detail
I was a free man once, in Saigon
The Joint Chiefs of Staff
the shit we ate
AK-47
Breaking Starch
Combat Infantryman Badge
David Dellinger
Dickey Chapelle
Firebase Mary Ann
Garry Owen
Gloria Emerson
Graves Registration
I Corps
MOS
Project 100,000
REMF
the 1st Cav
The Highest Traditions
Those Who Forget
Under the Southern Cross
Whither the Phoenix?
A Bright Shining Lie
Apocalypse Now Redux
Hearts and Minds
We Were Soldiers