PUBLICATION:
GLOBE AND MAIL
DATE:
2004.12.04
PAGE:
D39 (ILLUS)
BYLINE:
CAITLIN KELLY
SECTION:
Book Review
EDITION:
Metro
WORDS:
1041
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THREE
FOR THOUGHT: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT . . . GUNS Straight shooters On the eve
of the 15th anniversary of the Montreal massacre, CAITLIN KELLY considers books
to help us understand gun culture, rather than simply condemn it
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Fifteen
years ago this month, on Dec. 6, 1989, Marc Lepine shot his way into Canadian
history when he opened fire with a Sturm Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle on
27 female engineering students at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal; the 14
who died are now commemorated as Les Quatorze. Typically for such shootings,
Lepine then turned the gun on himself.
In
Canada, we may be thankful, such mass gun violence remains relatively rare. In
the United States, where 40 per cent of homes now contain a firearm and 200
million guns are in private hands, firearms mayhem is less unexpected. But
contrary to popular belief (or wishful thinking), many Canadians and Americans
-- men and women of all ages -- own and use guns safely and legally.
Owning
a gun can carry many different meanings -- not just, as opponents would have it,
an unbridled lust for firepower or a handy means to commit violence. Some gun
owners connect with history or a loved one by using their grandfather's service
weapon. For others, skeet, trapshooting and sporting clays are challenging
sports that demand considerable mental and physical control. Women gun owners
(and there are millions) enjoy owning guns for all the reasons men do, including
the ability to protect themselves from lethal predators, human or animal.
Yet
legal gun ownership is a subject little studied, even in academic circles. It
should be. It's not good enough to simply dismiss those you disagree with on
this issue -- as I learned while travelling across the United States
interviewing people from the ages of 13 to 72, from FBI agents and Olympic gold
medalists to convicted killers, to research my own book on American women and
gun use.
What's
the attraction of gun ownership? Abigail Kohn, a former graduate student in
anthropology at the University of California, tackles this question with
insight, sensitivity and clarity in Shooters: Myths and Realities of America's
Gun Cultures (Oxford University Press, 2004). "Guns have tremendous social
meaning in American society," she writes. "The different and
complicated meanings that Americans do attach to guns is almost completely
unexplored territory." The value of her book, and it's hard to overstate
how rare her perspective is, lies in her unusual approach. She shows how gun
ownership touches on many complex issues: personal autonomy and power, our
feelings about government regulation and our definitions of leisure and
recreation. Unlike most writers on the subject, who are strongly for or against
private gun ownership, Kohn sees gun owners as simply a group of people whose
values, attitudes and behaviours are worth studying. She got to know a group of
Northern California shooters, male and female, to understand why they like guns,
not to sneer at them because they do.
"Members
of the local gun culture love to talk about, shoot and collect guns. The fact
that this thriving example of gun culture co-exists alongside everything that
the gun culture supposedly is not (i.e. liberal, wealthy, multicultural,
contemporary), made Northern California a fascinating place for this
research," she writes. While her sample group is tiny, only 37, her tart,
smart observations are as germane to the issue in Canada as they are south of
the border.
"Owning
a gun, it kind of means determining your own fate," Johnathan, a white
university administrator, tells Kohn. "I don't call 911 . . . I feel better
having one." Thea, another California shooter, says that she thinks of
people who own guns as "being willing to stand up for themselves." She
adds, "I don't think gun owners by and large live in their heads. I think
they live more in a physical reality." Another key element of gun culture
that's also lamentably little understood is the marketing and distribution of
guns. Tom Diaz, a Democratic counsel to the Crime Subcommittee of the U.S. House
of Representatives from 1993 to 1997, comes out swinging on the topic in his
terrific Making a Killing: The Business of Guns in America (New Press, 1999).
According to Diaz, now a senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, a
public policy institute working to reduce gun violence: "The fact is that
the greater part of firearms violence in the United States does not stem from
'guns in the wrong hands' [but] rather from the virtually unregulated dangerous
consumer product." While he packs many assumptions into that sentence, this
book's value lies in his nuanced, detailed and sophisticated explication of how
guns are designed, marketed, promoted and sold. Diaz wants a much tougher and
more effective federal regulatory agency than the current Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; he suggests splitting it into two, one arm for
criminal enforcement and the other for regulating products. Federal officials
also need to develop complete data on firearms injuries and deaths.
Only
then can the agency rank which guns are the most dangerous and why.
Any
assessment of gun culture has to accept that for gun lovers, aesthetics are
involved. R. L. Wilson, a historian living in San Francisco, has produced a
stunning coffee-table book, Silk & Steel: Women at Arms (Random House,
2003). Appointed curator of firearms at the Wadsworth Atheneum at the age of 23,
Wilson has previously written on the history of such guns as the Colt,
Winchester, Ruger and Beretta. In this book, Wilson's aim is broad, pun
intended: Focusing on women and all kinds of weapons, he ranges from women
soldiers to legendary American shooter Annie Oakley and to the women who make,
engrave and collect firearms.
One
of his book's most intriguing photographs shows Eleanor Roosevelt shooting her
revolver. In 1958, the former first lady was invited to speak at a Tennessee
civil rights workshop, but was warned by the FBI that the Ku Klux Klan had put a
$25,000 bounty on her head.
Undaunted,
she took a loaded pistol in her car and went to the workshop as planned. You may
never understand why anyone wants to own a gun, but for the open-minded and
curious, these three books offer a good start.
Caitlin
Kelly, a former Globe and Mail reporter living in New York, is the author of
Blown Away: American Women and Guns.