Our National Non-Conversation About Guns

I’ve never owned a gun, and have fired one on few occasions. But I grew up around people for whom guns were a way of life. I remember sneaking into a small dump with a friend and firing his BB gun at a wrecked car. He also had his own .22 – shot with his father’s supervision — and some shotguns in the house, all locked. I shot a .22 at targets in Boy Scouts. I shoot clay pigeons with a shotgun from time to time. It’s an undeniably satisfying activity.

Though he almost never demonstrated his skills to me, my father served in the USAF and was a fine marksman. Occasionally, he would pull out his rifle to have a go at a groundhog threatening the footing of some horses we boarded. My brother told me he once saw dad sweep into a shooting competition at a picnic and take home the trophy, a whole pig. Dad never once encouraged me to follow in his footsteps.

James Carville once described Pennsylvania as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Alabama in the middle. That’s where I grew up, the Alabama part. Local elections were won by Republicans. It was not uncommon to see pickup trucks with camouflage paint jobs and rebel flag license plates. The Monday after Thanksgiving is a day off from school — it’s the first day of deer season.

That’s where I come from.

Now I live in New York City. When I see a gun anywhere, I feel concerned. It’s hard to imagine anything but bad things afoot. There just isn’t a context in my day-to-day life where a gun would be a welcome sight, or even a neutral one. Even if the person was a police officer or soldier I would feel concern. New York is a dense place, and one errant shot is likely to maim or even to kill. A mistake means a casualty.

When I’m out shooting clay pigeons, it’s always in Pennsylvania, in the spacious middle part, with mountains, woods and farms. I’d check first, but most of the time, I think I could turn around and fire randomly in any direction and at most I’d hit a tree. If it looks empty, it probably is.

Because I spend time in both places, I get into interesting conversations.

At the core, I think, is the difference in perceived threat in urban versus rural environments. If you live in a low-density area the plausible reasons to fire it are target practice, hunting, home invasion, and yes, self defense.

Sure, you could commit a crime, but that’s true anywhere. A person living outside a city is more likely to know the people who live nearby. Seeing Bob whose daughter babysits my kids carrying his shotgun to the car is a very different thing from seeing an anonymous neighbor to whom I will never speak carrying a pistol. Which is not to say actual crime is or isn’t more likely in either scenario. Only that it feels different.

I think it’s difficult for someone who doesn’t live in a large city to fully appreciate the feeling of seeing hundreds of people every day, and almost every one is a stranger. Mostly, I enjoy the anonymity, the pleasure of being not alone, yet alone with my thoughts. But mixed in is the concern that one of these strangers is dangerous.

When I talk to city dwellers about guns, they aren’t actually talking about guns. They are talking about gun owners, or more accurately, about the imaginary straw man Gun Owner. Gun Owners are depicted as militia members, mostly racist, mostly Out There, clinging to weapons they don’t need for no understandable reason.

Certainly, there are militias, certainly there are groups intent on overthrowing the government. But there are also women seeking to protect themselves from aggressive men. There are hunters who just want to hunt. There are people who live miles from police, near dangerous animals. And there are people who view guns as collector items.

Conversely, I get into interesting conversations when talking to gun owners back home. When they speak of my fellow city dwellers, and more specifically New Yorkers, they don’t talk about actual people, either. They talk about their own straw man, the Urban Liberal Elite. Urban Liberals eat arugula and drone about the theater. They all read the New York Times, which has an agenda to destroy traditional values, and which all Urban Liberals assent to, without question.

Lingering beneath these words, behind these arguments, I hear fear of the other side. Interestingly, I’ve heard both sides treat their opponents as omnipotent — an unstoppable gun lobby, a Democratic president who can and will take “all the guns” away by fiat.

When the Second Amendment was written, the country was more rural. The nation had just barely achieved independence, and would be invaded again in only a few years. But most importantly, the nation was more internally alike than it would soon be. Most of the land was unoccupied, the cities were only but so big, the residents were agrarian. Most people who lived in that America could easily summon a reason to need a gun.

Modern America has cities so big they have suburbs and even exurbs. We’ve moved through an industrial economy into a service based economy, we’ve built big cities, moved into them, moved out of them, moved back into them. I get the strong sense that many in America have a poor understanding of how the other parts live and exist. I certainly didn’t. Living in central Pennsylvania gave me absolutely no preparation for what New York would be like.

I tend to think I understand other people, what their hopes and dreams are, what life feels like to them. But for a difference like rural versus urban, I don’t think that works. Over and over, in my five plus years in New York, I have been struck by the many broken assumptions I had about cities and the people who live in them. Similarly, I’ve heard city dwellers speak of Pennsylvania as a rural utopia I know they’ll never quite find, though it truly is a beautiful place.

When I’m in the city, I don’t want guns around at all. When I’m in the country, I’m less concerned. But when an incident triggers a discussion about guns, most of the dialogue I read about or engage in operates on the notion that we must pick a law for everybody, and it should be the way that suits that person’s current lifestyle.

It’s not much of a dialogue, and it’s not moving anything forward, merely estranging citizens who are more alike than different, but experiencing the world through very different lenses. I don’t know what the best solution is, but I can’t see a benefit to treating half my fellow citizens’ views as worthless, which is what usually happens.

It’s a shame.