essay-guns-part II

Canadian children don't really have the experience of growing up with firearms the same way American children do.Guns,or at least handguns are not such a big part of our culture.None of our founding fathers saw fit to enshrine the right of gun ownership into our constitution,so there is no real sense of entitlement when it comes to firearms.And for that I thank God.Because,through over fifty years of living,I've never been shot,or even shot at.I don't know anyone who has been shot or shot at either,and,in fact I've only ever heard gunshots a few times in my life.As for handguns,I've only ever seen one once or twice.I wonder if they become a weapon of choice where they are available in great numbers.

Here in Canada,I can confidently walk around in even the seediest areas of our large cities with very little fear of ever being shot at.Could I say the same if I lived in Oakland,Bridgeport,Little Havana,Newark or East St.Louis?Still,we do have some gun violence.It's not completely absent.Just before I left Toronto last spring there were a couple of high profile shootings.One involved a Rap musician going into a recording studio.In the other,just a few days later,someone entered a barbershop,murdered the barber as he was cutting hair,then left the shop on foot.

Still,having grown up in Atlantic Canada during the 1960's and 1970's,there was no real way to be ignorant of guns.But guns in that cultural sense normally meant hunting rifles and shot guns.Police,of course wore guns,in most cities then,but in one or two of the areas larger cities,even they were yet to take up arms.You couldn't find a handgun in most homes though.

Everyone,or almost everyone hunted.If you were to take one look at the land that my grandparents called home,near where New Brunswick meets the state of Maine,it would be immediately obvious that perdition was a fact of life.Guns were needed to protect property and perhaps even life.Foxes raided the chicken coops and there were bears and even wolves about.Some people worried about mad dogs back then too.And the nearest police station was miles away.Most people were quite poor and would take at least a portion of their meat off the land,so having a rifle was to a certain extent a matter of survival.Today,when I go just a few miles north of Moncton,one of the regions largest cities,I can hear coyotes just off the road,in the nearby bushes.There was a fatal coyote attack while I was down east the last time too,so,for rural people,not much has changed over the decades.

From a very early age I knew about guns.Well,I knew some things about them,that is,but not really the right things.Not very much that I knew would carry forward in time to last week's horror at Sandy Hook School.Essentially it was a Hollywood,pop culture kind of a knowledge,complete with a lot of other messages Hollywood was putting out at the time.Afternoon movies  would feature John Wayne in pursuit of murderous red skinned savages,Nazis or desperadoes across the television screen.After a final,climatic shoot out,all would end well,with all the proper people being dead.For me though,I was just a child,so I was not tuned into all of the political, cultural,racial or moral aspects of the show.For me it was just a matter of excitement and of knowing that all the bad people would be killed at the end of it all.I knew very little about virtue,but I could not miss the message that it came out of the barrel of a gun.

Gun death on television,in those days was very sanitary compared to today.The censors of the day,I'm certain would not allow you to see the reality of a man being shot in the chest with a .38 or a shotgun.If they had,it wouldn't have seemed nearly as virtuous.So there was just some smoke,a loud bang and some actors falling away in overly dramatic fashion.Not one drop of blood could be seen for the most part.It was a far cry from what would be shown today.And that is both good and bad.Bad because I could do without the graphics of such movies today.But good because such movies often have a political activism and a social conscience that was lacking back then.In short,they are a bit less likely to be propaganda now as opposed to then.Movies back then usually portrayed the justness of the historic American Cause.

There were always guns in our house.Again,by guns I mean guns for hunting,not handguns.They were stored in a closet just inside our front door,where they were propped up in a corner among our rain boots,with our coats and jackets hanging down from hangers just above them.They were not locked away,and though they were for hunting,if we were threatened,I suppose they could have been easily accessed.My father owned a twelve gauge,a .22,a.270 and a four ten shotgun.Once,when I was three or four,I even found a bullet in the basement and was playing with it until my mother came and took it away.I had no idea what it was.

With the idea of guns planted firmly in our minds from early childhood,we incorporated the idea into endless hours of play.Most of us,all of the male kids in my neighborhood,had toy guns of all varieties.I myself had a pair of six guns that could fire caps,and a toy Thompson machine gun that sounded quite real.Lots of kids had toy rifles too.So we would play war,or cops and robbers or Cowboys and Indians.

Cowboys and Indians was very much the same as on television.At least the outcome was the same.Dead Indians!Dead Germans!

To play any of these games required quite a few children.At least six most of the time.Two teams would be formed,and they would consist of "good guys"and "bad guys",with the bigger,older kids getting to decide who was who.The older kids didn't use the term "good guys"and "bad guys"though.If you played war in my neighborhood,you either got to be an American,or a "Kraut" if we were playing war.or a "Cowboy"or an "Injun"if the game was Cowboys and Indians.Sometime the "Krauts"would be "Japs".You didn't want to be an Indian or a "Kraut."Nobody did,because you always lost.You see,the game was rigged from the start with the older kids,or the in crowd,or the kids who could and would fight laying claim to all the spots on the team of "Americans."Or Cowboys.

Sometimes a girl would come by and want to play.If a girl was allowed to play at all,she had to be and Indian or a "Kraut."Without question,she would be lying dead at the end of each round of the game.There was the odd kid with mental disabilities who would come by and want to play too,and,of course,they always had to be on the team of bad guys.While the girls usually tired of the nonsense after a couple of rounds and went elsewhere,the kids with disabilities would play all day,thinking they were being included.But often it wasn't a welcoming kind of inclusion.

The way the game was supposed to work was that everyone would run and hide while someone counted to ten.When the count ended,you would all start looking for soldiers from the opposing team.When you saw one,you pointed your gun and shot.If you didn't have a gun,and often we didn't,we would just use sticks.If you fired your gun first,the other soldier was supposed to fall down dead.Except that the "Americans"usually wouldn't fall,saying that they shot first,of that the "Krauts" missed.Sometimes,though,these "Americans"would allow a token dead guy to come from their numbers,and sometimes a "Kraut"would be allowed to become a prisoner,but the "Americans"always won.And you would really rather be dead than be taken prisoner anyhow,because when you were taken prisoner,the older boys,the "Americans"got to execute you.And even though that was not real,it could still be humiliating.You'd be pulled to the side,and sometimes the "Americans"who were going to execute you  would poke you in the back with there guns,or even poke you in the crotch.And they would say things like"Damn Kraut" or"The only good Indian is a dead Indian"The toy gun would then be placed to the back of your head and fired,at which point you were dead.Game over!The "Americans"win again.And,if you didn't like the outcome,well,too bad.You'd not be allowed back in the game,and the older kids,the "Americans"could,and would enforce the rules.Usually that would involve pointing out to us that that was the way it really happened.We really couldn't argue with that.But sometimes there would be fights too.Such was just the way that young lions played back then.

We'd never heard the words racism,xenophobia or mysogeny back then,but whenever toy guns were around,these things seemed to surface on their own.I also find it odd how the "Good guys"were always "Americans"rather than Canadians.Sure,they were always the virtuous ones,but the way the game played out,it was not very complimentary towards Americans.

Back then,guns were just child's play.But,in thinking back,I really have to wonder about the hand that was holding the weapon.



                           TO BE CONTINUED.

essay-guns.

It was just a cold,lifeless piece of metal,and yet I knew it had a life of it's own.It passed from one hand,to another,to another.From a WWII veteran to a collector of historical artifacts via a go between,someone who had arranged the deal.And each of these men had a different attitude about the thing.The veteran simply wanted to be rid of it,for reasons imaginable,though likely fully known only to himself.The collector was interested in it's historical significance, and the thing certainly had that in spades.The middle man had no specific feelings toward the thing,so far as I know.He was just happy to help out two friends.And the thing?It was a gun,a Luger,to be specific,WWII era,and so it certainly had a life of it's own.If only guns could talk.

It was the first time I had ever seen a real gun.I knew about them though.War movies and Cowboy and Indian movies,staples of 1960's television showed me how they were used,and what they could do.So,as a boy in grade school,I was transfixed by the gun as it lay on our kitchen table,then passed from hand to hand.A real gun within arms length.

There was one thing that I knew about the gun right there and then,that television could never have taught me,and the knowing of it was innate,instinctual.The gun demanded attention.It was a psychological entity,almost a spirit,and it's presence could never be ignored.

Folk singer Steve Earle called a pistol"The Devil's right hand."It may not be the only way to think of guns,but it's one metaphor,among many that serves to open the door of thought on the subject of guns.And it's not so much that cold piece of steel that I want you to think about,as I relay some stories about guns from my own life.It's that metaphorical gun,that psychological entity you need to keep in mind,because this is a story about guns and attitudes.Guns and attitudes!So,as you read,please keep some of your own attitudes in mind.

I am Canadian.I expect that fact will inform some of my attitudes towards fire arms,in the same way that I expect being American might inform a persons attitudes in a very different way.If you live south of the forty Ninth,I expect that your visceral experiance of weapons,is by virtue of nationality,quite different from my own.That's okay.I don't mean to criticize,I just want you to apply clean,clear thought to the subject.

Metaphorical guns tend to get attached to many different things,in the sense of connotative meaning.For instance,guns have come to be associated with some of the following concepts:Patriotism,National/Ethnic Pride,Colonialism,Pioneering,Survival,Safety,Freedom,Self Defense.Also:Outlaws,crime,gangs,rebellion and rebels,both in the personal and the political sense,and self sufficency.

Tragedy!That's the one we are all thinking about just now.And,American Exceptionalism!That once  grand and noble idea,or,at least a worthy myth.

American Exceptionalism.We'll come back,full circle to that one.



                                                                    TO BE CONTINUED.

memoir chapter III-continued

It goes without saying, I think,that children have a limited capacity to grasp religious concepts.In looking back,it was certainly true of myself.But my mother and father both taught us what they believed were some very basic concepts that would be understandable to us.For the most part,they were,at least to some degree.But I still had questions.

One big question seemed to be taking root in my mind,more or less because of the teaching I was receiving.The question was something that was just out of my grasp when I was four,but,being instinctual to most humans,it was nevertheless there.I would not have been able to phrase the question in a meaningful way then,but I can now:If God is good,and He can do anything,why do bad things happen?

Looking back I'm surprised how young I was when that thought first presented itself in my mind.But,at age four,and having led a protected life,my understanding of evil things was very limited as well.But the idea of bad things seemed possible because of concepts like trespasses and the need to forgive.And above all else,Hell,which you could not even mention by name,and where you would burn forever in a huge fire seemed like a very bad thing.I wondered how God,who was good and could do all things could allow such a thing.

thank you Mr Singh

Shot and sweet.Who said we have to use generic references to holidays to respect one another?As I was waiting to cross 7th avenue in downtown Calgary today,a c train approached from the west.As he entered the intersection he used the trains horn to play the melody of Jingle Bells.I looked up to see a turbaned man driving the train and smiling.Thank You so much Mr.Singh.Enough said.

memoir chapter III-continued

Heaven and Hell were not the only concepts that my father taught me.He also taught that prayer was"talking to God",and he taught us two different prayers.The first was a prayer to be said before we went to bed.It started out "Now I lay me down to sleep."Most people back then knew it,and called it the Bedtime Prayer.Back then we would say it every night.But,more recently,I've never really liked it for children because of the line that says"If I should die before I wake."I've simply grown to think that it's not good to provide children with anxiety that they don't already have.I don't recall,though that it made me anxious,but I certainly see how it could,especially if you also had a keener comphrehsion of Hell than of Heaven.

Along with the Bedtime Prayer we were taught the Lord's Prayer in it's entirity.This one part of scripture was either something he knew very well,or felt was very vital,or both,because he went through it line by line explaining what it meant."Daily bread"meant food and water."Trespasses were all the wrong things we did to others,or,all the wrong they did to us.To "forgive"meant to forget,subject,of course to certain conditions,and "evil"was something bad like sickness,or an accident,or bad people who liked to hurt or even kill others."The power and the glory was something that belonged to God,things that,translated from my father's telling meant that God could do anything.

Forgiveness was also a concept that was very meaningful to my father.When he explained the Lord's Prayer to us,he would especially stress that part of it about forgiving trespasses.How he explained the concept to me then was,again,very basic,but essentially complete.We should try never to wrong others,but at times we would,and they likewise would do wrong to us.When we hurt someone,we were called upon to be sorry for having done so,and to ask them to forgive us.And,we must also forgive anyone who had done us wrong,and who was sorry and wanted to be forgiven.The only thing that he seemed to have left out is the part about God forgiving us for wrongs we did to Him.

memoir chapter III-continued

Just because my father did not observe religious rituals,at least within our view,doesn't mean that he did not participate in our early religious upbringing.Clearly there was some understanding between him and my mother as to what religious teaching we would receive.Or,perhaps it was simply an agreement that we would receive Christian teaching without reference to it's particular belief in a denominational sense.What he would have said if my mother had chosen Mormonism or Catholicism as a religion I cannot say.

My mother was not the only one to read us Bible stories.My father would read them too,though I don't think that he ever really presented them as something that he personally believed in.

For a while,my father would tell us about God too.In those days what he told us was rather basic,limited and easy to paraphrase:God made us and gave us a soul.God lives in Heaven,which is a wonderful place.But there was another place,called Hell,where the Devil lived and there was a huge fire that never went out.If you lived a good life you went to Heaven to be with God when you died.But if you were bad,you went to Hell,where you would burn forever.

Heaven,and God I did not really understand. I was told that the church was Gods house,but I wondered why I never saw him when I went to church.As far as Heaven went,it was something I could not conceive of.I'd never seen gold or diamonds or even silver,which were the things Heaven was supposed to be made of,so there was just no reference in my mind for what Heaven was or why I would want to go there.So I endlessly asked my parents what I suppose are the normal questions about God and Heave that a small child would ask.Is Heaven far away?How long does it take to drive there?Why can't I see God?What color is God?Which house does He live in when He goes home from church?Can I go over to His house someday to play with Jesus?

Hell,on the other hand was something that frightened me.It was such a bad place that we were not even allowed to say the word for fear of going there.And while all the things of Heaven were abstract,I fully understood the concept of fire and smoke and burning,even if the idea of forever was beyond me.And,to go along with that,I understood being good as doing those things that pleased my parents,and being bad doing those things that angered them.The whole problem was,as I saw it then was that I did both good and bad things all the time.So then,where would I go when I died?A strange logic about this took root in my mind.It went something like this:Doing a lot of good things did not make one bad thing good,so it was kind of easy to get to Hell.On the other hand,I thought,maybe it was the last thing you did that most mattered.If I were to,say,eat all of my Lima beans without arguing or saying no,and were to die as a result,I would go to Heaven.But suppose I were to be hit by a car while playing on the street.Well,then I would go to Hell,because I was not allowed to play on the street.But,of course,if both my mother and I were crossing the street at a light,and I was holding her hand,we would both be bound for Heaven.

At four years old,I certainly had a lot to learn about religion and morality.But the bottom line was that I was convinced that I could never be good enough to avoid Hell.Partly that was because Hell was a lot more real in my mind than Heaven was.It was a lot like thinking of a house filled up with all kinds of beautiful things and kept nice and neat all the time,as opposed to a house that is burning down.The burning house is easier to visualize.But also,I didn't know it then,but my father left out an essential part of the picture.

memoir chapter III-continued.

Where my father went or what he did on those Sunday mornings while we were in church I don't know.But I can say that he almost never came with us.Certainly some mornings he must have been very tired,having just got off the midnight shift and driven the eighty miles home.But I don't really know why,on those Sundays he wasn't working,he chose not to go to the church and worship with his family.It caused me to wonder from an early age what he thought about God,and why what he thought seemed outwardly so very different from what my mother thought.In fact,my father's beliefs remain largely a mystery to me,to this day,simply because so little in the way of belief was openly stated.And yet I'm certain he had beliefs.

My fathers religious behaviour also caused me some puzzlement when it came to my mother and her beliefs.If to her God and Jesus and being a Christian were so important,why had she married someone who,I could tell even then,did not seem to agree with her on matters of religion?I could hardly have put voice to this as a four year old,and yet there was something really unsettling about it.It was not nearly the same thing as disagreeing about painting the outside of the house blue as opposed to yellow,and I knew that even as a kid.Religion,what you believed about God was important in governing what sort of things you did,and who you would become.That's the message I got from one corner,while from the other corner ,I sensed that it didn't matter so much.

None of this is to say that my father was an unbeliever.Neither does it mean that my mother did not lead an exemplary Christian life.But interpreting how anyone believes is,by the nature of belief and how it is lived out,a very difficult if not impossible task.That may not be true where belief is openly and consistently stated,but such was not the case in our home.