Off to the Range

Originally written Thursday, March 17, 2005

Last night, my good friend Wayne picked me up at my house and we went up to the Hamilton Gun Club, a local shooting range. Wayne has been enthusiastically telling me about how much fun he’s been having shooting trap and skeet with his two shotguns. He got his firearms license last year and bought his first gun a few months ago. I was curious to go, because I’ve never really been around guns, and I’ve never fired anything more powerful than an airgun. This was my opportunity to see what it was really all about.

The Hamilton Gun Club is a modest structure that looks like a large house, situated in a sprawling field on the outskirts of Hamilton. Colourful shotgun casings and chunks of clay litter the property. The inside of the club is utterly mundane – linoleum floors, cheerful overweight women cooking up roast beef in a large kitchen (dinner is included with the Night Shoot), and fold-up tables with a mix of Hamiltonians sitting around them. The crowd was mostly middle-aged men, with a few women shooters, and a few younger people as well, mostly in their twenties.

Wayne signed me in as a guest and we were ready to go. We went back to his truck to get the shotguns. He had already filled me in on some basic gun safety rules (the most important: don’t point the gun at anything you don’t plan to shoot), so after teaching me how to load it, use the safety, and eject the spent casings, we stuffed our pockets full of ammo and went off to shoot some trap.

Trap is where you stand behind a small concrete dugout, facing into a large field. Five people shoot at once. Each person has their own station where they fire five rounds, and then everybody rotates to the next station. You load the gun when it’s almost your turn to go, but you don’t cock it until it’s your turn and you’re ready to fire. Slamming the pump action forward and yelling “Pull!” – which is what you say when you want the operator to send out a clay, the little discs they use as targets – is a satisfying feeling. Because it’s a night shoot, they use white clays that shine brightly as they fling forwards in a long rising arc. “Snap!” I fired and missed. When you hit, the clay breaks up into a shower of fragments.

I say “snap!” to describe the sound the gun makes because that’s what it sounded like – a high-pitched pop. I had been expecting a loud boom and a significant kick, but it wasn’t like that at all. I didn’t realize that was because we were using trap-shooting rounds, which are light competition rounds designed simply to shoot clay. It wasn’t until we were shooting skeet with some younger guys, and one of them used a hunting round, that the gun really made noise – a loud “Boom!” with a big blue-white flash.

After shooting trap, we went in and ate a roast beef sandwich, prepared for us by one of the aforementioned women. A roast beef sandwich on white bread doused in gravy and some previously frozen mixed vegetables did the job of filling us up. Then we hooked up with a group of three young guys, two brothers and one of their friends, along with a girlfriend (I wasn’t quite sure whose girlfriend she was), to go shoot some skeet.

You shoot the same white clays in skeet, except that instead of flinging out from in front of you into the distance, they come from two towers on the right and left of you, and travel across your field of view instead of away from you. This is more difficult, since the lateral motion of the clay is so much greater. The other fun thing about skeet is the double rounds, where a clay is fired from each tower at about the same time. For that, you put two shells into the shotgun. “Shhh-click-load and fire, shhh-click-load and fire again!” Having to fire, then pump the shotgun and fire again immediately afterwards is a challenge. It’s exhilarating when you actually hit the second clay.

***

In my last blog post, I criticized the American military and the “justice” they apply to their soldiers. Wemi left a comment and said, “Is it hypocritical for someone to be radically against the American military/violence and then shoot guns at a range for pleasure?” [Edited].

One of the reasons I decided to go last night was to educate myself a bit more about guns, so that I could answer this type of question, and some other questions of my own. After all, guns are weapons that take thousands, maybe even millions, of lives each year. What is the connection between guns in the context I was in last night, at a shooting range, and guns used to murder, intimidate and oppress?

I think guns are what you could call a “dual-use technology”. This is a term used to describe a technology that can be used both for positive uses and negative, violent uses. Nuclear technology is a prime example: it can be used to generate power, or it can be used to create weapons of mass destruction. You could say that nuclear technology can be a tool or a weapon. Guns fall into the same two roles.

As tools, guns play an important role for many people that could hardly be replaced. In Northern Canada, guns are used as protection from dangerous animals such as bears while in the wilderness. Guns are used to hunt game, providing food for families and culling animals that are harming the ecosystem because of overpopulation (in the Hamilton area, deer that no longer have natural predators such as wolves are a prime example of that type of problem). Guns are also used in a sporting context, like at the shooting range, as a safe (safer than snowboarding, for example) and harmless hobby.

As weapons, guns also play an important role in our lives, whether we like it or not. We entrust our police officers with guarding the peace and protecting the innocent, and to do so we give them the use of deadly force. We protect our country against hostile invasion and attack with the same deadly weapons. It could be argued that if no guns existed at all, we could protect our country with bows and spears, medieval-style, although that type of thinking is pointless. Bows and spears have also taken their share of lives in their own deadly efficient way.

Being anti-war and opposed to unjust American military practices and learning how to use a gun is not a contradiction. As I’ve said, guns are tools used for various legitimate purposes in civilian life. When it comes to guns as weapons, used against people, I should point out that I am not a pacifist. I believe that violent resistance is a legitimate right against a violent oppressor. I believe that taking up arms against a hostile invader who threatens the safety of my family and friends is not just a right, it’s a duty. It’s a duty that many Canadians have answered, and died for, as they fought against the Hitler regime in World War II.

I think it is hypocritical to criticize guns used as tools to hunt game for food and for clothing, but at the same time to eat meat and wear leather. The automated violence that kills the turkeys, geese, chickens, sheep and cows that we eat every day and whose skin and feathers we use for clothes, boots, purses, pillows and cosmetics is no less a violent tool for killing than a gun. Lopping off a chicken’s head with a sharpened industrial blade is no different than lopping it off with a well-placed load of birdshot.

You could claim that by purchasing guns, you are supporting the same industry that manufactures them for the American military, where they are used unjustly, and you would probably be right. But if you feel that way, you ought to stop driving American cars, because their manufacturers also produce American tanks. You ought to stop flying on American planes, because their manufacturers also make American fighter jets. You ought to stop buying appliances made by General Electric, because they make the engines that power those fighter jets. Or you could just buy your guns from an Italian or German manufacturer and not worry about that at all.

Comment from wemi:

I understand however the personal choice of a driving a car or buying a toaster oven are not DIRECTLY contributing to the loss of so many lives, ie: gun violence that exists everwhere in the world!

Alevo:

More than anything, I think this debate illustrates the value of being an informed consumer. It is not the ownership of the item (in this case a gun) which facilitates or propogates a potentially violent application of its technology elsewhere – it is the support of a manufacturer who may contribute to activities you find unethical or problematic. Certain firearms manufacturers produce specific calibre guns which are clearly intended for taking human life, violence and intimidation. These are armour-piercing weapons, or large calibre, long-range weapons ( I say weapons here to highlight the difference – a gun is not, de facto, a weapon). Personally, I would avoid giving my money to a company that is involved in developing this form of firearm. It is a purchase decision I have the luxury of making. Wemi, for a good portion of people in the world – those who are not ensconed in the luxury of Western concrete – a gun is not a weapon. If you are familiar with our own provincial north, you will know this is the case. It is more of an issue that we ensure they are able, and want to make ethical purchasing decisions like you or I. Firearms manufacturers in the business of making weapons are big problem. Firearms manufacturers solely making safely operating, utilitarian calibre guns are not, in my opinion, contributing to gun violence.