Firearms, A Perspective:
by James M. Karr

As an old man, over fifty, and closer to sixty that fifty, I have some observations about the history and usage of firearms in America, at least in my lifetime.

 As a young boy, from about 7 or 8 years old, I had seen my father and grandfather hunt with long guns (rifles, shotguns) and had accompanied them on many trips to the field for small game, squirrels, rabbits, and for waterfowl and upland game birds.  Somewhere in the time frame I was given an air rifle and taught the basics of safety and proper handling.  If I erred by pointing the air rifle in the wrong direction, having it loaded at improper times, or taking the safety off too early, I was punished.  The punishment varied with the seriousness of the infraction, the worst one being of course, not being allowed on the next hunting excursion.  The air rifle taught me safety and respect for the weapon.

About this time I joined the Cub Scouts, and received basic marksmanship instruction from an NRA licensed instructor, that would have been about 1953 or so.  I also remember taking our scout knives to school and playing mumblety-peg at recess with other eight and nine year old boys.  Our teacher, Mrs. Mylar, could usually whip our butts at the game.

I had the great privilege too, of spending the summers at my grandfather’s fishing camp on what is now Truman Lake.  We spent lots of evenings target shooting with .22 caliber rifles, and air rifles at tin cans, and even aspirin tins, or when really challenged, a dime or quarter placed in the bark of a tree. For the last event, we used pistols for the challenge of it, in other words, handguns.  My job was to disassemble and clean each gun at the end of the “shooting matches”.  Here, I learned the mechanics and basics of firearm construction and maintenance from my Dad, and Grandfather, both veterans of the Army.  All of our firearms were in an unlocked gun cabinet, or simply hung on wall racks in some room.  There was only one loaded weapon in the house, next to my Dad’s or Grandfather’s bedside.  As Granddad once said, he would not “give a hoot in hell for a man who would not defend home and family”. 

Oh, I also played cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, and war with toy guns, manufactured and made by hand.  I watched “Cheyenne, Maverick, 77 Sunset Strip, and other violent shows on TV most every night with the rest of the family. 

I was not unique in the preceding described behavior.  Most of the boys, and quite a few of the girls, grew up in the same atmosphere. 

In 1966, college was interrupted by the fracas in Southeast Asia.  At basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, the rifle range was no big challenge for the boys from Missouri, and surrounding states.  The fellows from the urban centers were a different story.  Our range instructors, and drill sergeants told us that “you country boys had better help these guys shoot, or you all will be on KP or guard duty every night till the end of training”.  We became shooting instructors overnight, and succeeded by motivating our charges with threats of severe and prolonged beatings if they did not qualify.  One of our drill sergeants told me it was the same with every class of recruits, the “country boys” had to be there or their job would have been next to impossible.

After I was discharged in 1969, my new wife and I were asleep in our first little duplex home, when she told me she heard something in the first floor kitchen.  Heeding my granddad’s words I grabbed my house gun.  I caught the intruder halfway in the house, one leg over the windowsill, holding a large, highly sharpened machete.  He was held for the police.  A rather exciting evening it was for us, but we never made the ten o’clock news.

My grown son was brought up in the same fashion as I was regarding firearms, and general conduct. He grew up in the church, and he played little league ball.  We have hunted quail, wild turkey, and pheasant together.  He is a better shot that I am; I think it is his youth, and not talent!  No doubt, he will rear his sons and daughters in much the same manner, at least I hope and pray that he does.

My perspective is not unique regarding firearms; in fact it is probably commonplace.  We have always been members of the National Rifle Association, and honestly, we find the attitudes of some folks who almost viscerally hate gun owners, hard to understand.  Do they think every gun owner is a teen-age gangbanger, a spousal abuser, a participant in drive-by shooting, or some homicidal maniac bent on shooting everyone in a school, workplace, or church?  Probably not, but they do believe that every firearm is a threat to their safety, their children’s safety, and the safety of the land.  How very sad that such attitudes exist in a country where “the doorway to all freedoms, “…. truly is, “framed with muskets”.

A final note, no one is more sickened by teenagers killing teenagers, or drive-bys, or armed robberies than is the good citizen who owns firearms.  Contrary to what the pundits preach we deplore this behavior beyond my ability to express it in mere words. We know every such incident is going to be used to try and place, at least some of the guilt of it, on us.  We know that we will have to patiently, again and again and again, state our case as calmly, and as unemotionally as possible to look beyond the evil that a few may do, and concentrate upon the good that countless others do.  The National Rifle Association may appear too strident to some, but to us it offers a balance that is increasingly needed to protect a culture and heritage that was fought for by every generation of Americans, from Bunker Hill, to Shiloh, to the Ardennes, to Normandy, to Pork Chop hill, to the Mekong, and finally to Desert Storm. 

If Americans were to be disarmed by the well intentioned, but foolish, I would fear for our country.  That basic training drill sergeant would be easily over-whelmed, and then with our defenses gone, so would we.

I cannot believe our culture and our people have changed so much from the days I was taught marksmanship in the Cub Scouts, and played mumblety-peg with my teacher, yet each day someone, or something, tells me it has.  We all, every one of us, need to consider how we “can move ahead to go back to saner times”.  Times when family, Church, duty, country, and honor were more than words. Won’t we all be better for it?