“Oh, these Americans and their guns...”

One of the issues that always fascinated and baffled me about US culture was the obsession with guns and the right to carry them. As an outsider, it seems so obvious that the gun policies in the United States don't work in favor of peoples' safety. We hear stories all the time about toddlers being killed by accident, people shooting themselves, minor conflicts escalating into gun violence, mass shootings... the majority of Europeans, I assume, look at the situation and ask themselves: how is all of that still not enough to change peoples' minds and gain popular support for stricter regulations on guns?

Since I've been here, I talked to a wide variety of people about guns to understand their mindset. One argument I heard repeatedly by many gun enthusiasts was: “All these people from California and New York trying to take away our guns don't understand anything about guns and our culture, have never been to [Texas / Louisiana / Tennessee], have never shot a gun before. How can they judge us and try to regulate our rights to carry guns?”

So to be able to join the conversation, I decided to try shooting a gun for myself, hoping to gain a new perspective.

I went to a shooting range in San Antonio called “LoneStar Handgun” and took a female beginners' class called “Daughters of Texas”. I thought: Let's go the whole hog. I wanted the full Texas experience.

Before the class started, I was sweating – and not only because of the 100° Texas weather. We all had to sign waivers that said that the shooting range could not be held accountable for any injuries or death that might be inflicted upon us by ourselves or other shooters. Just in the morning, my roommate had told me a story about a death on a San Antonio shooting range a few years back, when a 11-year old girl was unable to handle her shotgun's recoil and shot her instructor.

The class started with some theory about safety rules and the parts of a hand gun. While we were sitting in the classroom, waiting for the instructor to come, a slideshow of pro-gun memes were shown on the projector. My “favorite” one was probably the picture of a thirteen year-old sitting on his bed with a shotgun in his hands and the caption: “Old enough to be home alone – old enough to own a gun.”

You might also enjoy:

• “Change the 2nd Amendment – make the streets safe for rapists again.”
• “Being prey is a choice – what is your choice?”
• “Stopping a stalker with a piece of paper? - A gun is more effective than a restraining order.”
• A woman on the floor with a dark man towering over her: “Would you wait for 911 to arrive half an hour later?”

These memes, I belief, tell a lot about the worldview of many gun proponents. First of all, they portray the world as an extremely scary place, where danger and threats are waiting for you at every corner. Especially as a woman you are lucky if you have not been mugged, raped, tortured and murdered - yet. Allegedly, you have to be prepared for “evil” at all times.

The images also reflect a big distrust in the institutions of law and order. The message is: the police won't help you, they are too slow to help you, and restraining orders are just useless pieces of paper. You cannot trust anyone; you yourself have to take the responsibility for your survival.

The pictures also always show a clear distinction between the good and the evil: some dark, shadowy figure representing the “criminal”, the pure evil, the rapist and murderer, who obviously needs to die to protect the innocent victim, often portrayed as a young girl or as a mother with her children. The victims are put into a corner by the bad guy and have no other choice than to protect themselves by the force of a gun. How convenient that the world is such a simple place without any human error, mental illnesses, or complex situations!

Most of the other participants in the class were recently divorced women in their 50s, who now lived alone in some suburb and wanted to get a gun to protect themselves and their homes. One had her concealed carry license and a Glock at home already, although she openly admitted that she was unable to handle it. Another one of the women, the oldest seemed to have trouble following the instructor's words and didn't manage the right stand and the right hand position during our short class period. But the instructor nevertheless encouraged everyone to get a gun as soon as possible. He even said: “Get your license first, get your gun first, and then you can still train to perfect your shooting. But at first, it is important that you have your gun to be safe.” A very responsible sales strategy, I have to say.



Then we actually went out to the range and got to try out a handful of different guns. I cannot lie, shooting was pretty fun (and I was pretty good at it). It was also more physically challenging than I had expected. After fifteen bullets, my arms started shaking already. Shooting also made me realize how much more training I would need to actually be able to use a gun in a real-life situation. It is easy in this protected setting, with someone correcting your stand, and all the time in the world to aim, and no adrenaline of an actual threat. But using a gun in real life takes a lot more than understanding how a gun works and how to shoot it.

Many people I talked to said that they own guns because they want to protect their loved ones. Wilson from Nashville told me this story about how he and his girlfriend were shot at in the city in a drive-by shooting. Since that day, he has always carried a gun. My Athens roommate imagined an armed burglar breaking into his future house and threatening his future family. Another scenario I heard a lot was: “Imagine someone came through this door right now and started shooting – would you not want to stop him?”

Rationally, these arguments don't make a lot of sense, I believe, because most likely shooting back will do little to deescalate these situation but instead heighten the likelihood of injuries and deaths on all sides. But these arguments are not driven by rationale, they are driven by emotions, by fear and by love. Emotions are very hard to argue with.

It is a vicious cycle. Many people admitted that they would prefer a country without guns. But that would be impossible to ever achieve in the US, they predicted. So even if they opposed guns theoretically, they felt the need to have one: “because everyone else does!”

Another argument is that the state should not have the only monopoly over the use of force. Generally, the suspicion against government power is a lot bigger here than back home, a suspicion very deeply ingrained in the country's history and culture. And, for very good reason, people also have very little trust in the police and the judiciary. In reality of course, the high prevalence of gun ownership in the country does nothing to limit the power of government and police.

Whenever I asked the opponents of regulations what they thought about high numbers of adults and children killed by guns every year by accident and due to a lack of caution, most said that these people were just stupid people – something like that would never happen to themselves. Mike from Louisiana expressed anger over the people who don't follow the rules and thus injure themselves. According to him, they only shed a bad light on the majority of responsible gun owners.

And lastly, I also met three people from small towns or the countryside who actually didn't cite self-protection as the reason for their gun ownership, but instead actually used their guns to hunt. All of them also consumed the animals they shot. One guy even told me that the meat his dad shot during his childhood used to be an essential part of the family's diet during economically harsh times.

I talked a lot already, I know, but I want to add one last remark: All of these people I met who defended the US gun laws did not convince me or change my mind. Their arguments might make you shake your head. But it would be very wrong to just put these people in a box of “gun fanatics” and close the lid. These people were neither stupid nor uneducated. Many have understandable fears, caused in part by real experiences of threats and violence (and in part by pro-gun memes). But my point is: instead of just shaking your head about the gun owners, it might be more constructive to think about why people are fearful and what can be done to address these fears' causes.