On Owning a Firearm

This essay is dedicated to my beloved Sarah who has been an unfailing inspiration in the creation of it...

My father was employed with the United States' Department of Justice at the
Federal Detention Headquarters in Greenwich Village, New Yorkright next
door to the Bell Laboratoriesand every six months he had to qualify his
competence with the use of a pistol. His friend was the qualifying offcer, and
when I was a boy, I would frequently accompany them (go shooting) to the
FBI indoor shooting range in Manhattanif I remember correctly. There I,
too, qualifed by being introduced to any number of pistols and rifeseven
a sub-Thompson machine gun. What I recall most vividly was the stench of
gun smoke that flled the range, and I often couldn't wait to return home. I
can say that I was nothing more than a novice shooter in my youth, not like
my battalion commander at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas,
a West Pointer, who was a member of the all-Army .45 caliber pistol team and
who helped me understand the Art of Shooting that most, for me,
cumbersome weapon. Being around guns when I was so young, I remember
being inculcated with an almost abnormal respect for weaponry, and I learned
that when one aims a weapon it must be at a paper target or an attacking
hostile force. Firing line discipline is a must.

Of course, in the Army I would trip all day over arms. As an Artillery offcer, I
was trained to fre the 105mm howitzer, the 155mm howitzer, the 8-inch gun
at the time the most accurate artillery weapon in the world, the 120mm
howitzer; and, when I served in a rocket and missile training battalion, I
hung around the Little John and Honest John rockets. (Rockets are
distinguished from missiles in that a rocket, when fred, cannot be guided
from the control room. Missiles, such as the Pershing and Sergeant, can be
or, at least could be when I served in the Army.) Then there were the .45
caliber pistol, the M-1 rife, the M-14 rife, the M-16 rife and the M-60
machine gunall of them weapons that were used by the infantry and which I
had to have a working knowledge of their uses.

In Vietnam, as an artillery forward observer, I was authorized an M-16 rife

which was having its baptism of fre in Vietnam, but had to have different
adjustments made to it because of its problems with jamming and misfrings.
In fact, the LRRPs (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol members) refused to
use the M-16 opting for the AK-47s that had been captured from enemy
forces. When I was a aerial forward observer, I used the CAR-15 rife which
was, essentially, a snub-nosed M-16. In an O-1 Cessna observation plane,
referred to as the bird dog, the CAR-15 was the just-right weapon to use
when leaning out of the plane's window. I taped two 30-round banana
magazines together, and every ffth or so round in the clips was a tracer round
which guided the fring of the weapon when need be. I also wore a holstered .
45-caliber pistol when fying over the beautiful terrain in the Central
Highlands of Vietnam searching for the enemy.

To be perfectly honest with you, I really don't like guns, weapons. When I
lived in Caracas, Venezuela (1975-1983), I was robbed three timestwo times
at gunpoint. The frst time, three men accosted me at the corner of a dark
street near my home, and two of the banditos had put a pistol to each temple
of my head while the third took every possession I had including my belt,
glasses, wallet, keys, and pipe. I rationalized that I should have carried a
weapon when I lived there, but I never gave into that urge. My reasoning is
this: I do not want to live continually with the thought someone might assault
me. Such an occurrence is usually rareeven in the violent Caracas of today
and I wish to think most people are good and not out to attack me. Having a
pistol within my reach at all times puts negative feelings into my being and
might, over time, lead me to be paranoid regarding my feelings towards my
fellows. (Please do not think I am naive. If I were a diamond salesman walking
around Manhattan with $10,000,000 of diamonds in a satchel, I certainly
would want to have a registered frearm to protect myself when necessary. Or
suppose I lived on a 50,000,000-acre ranch in Montana and my home was
surrounded by bobcats or black bears or gray wolves or rattlesnakes or coyotes
or I would receive notice that my mother-in-law was coming out to visit with
us for a week or so, you can be sure I would possess a frearm to offer
warning shots to these beasts letting them all know who the boss was on my
ranch. I could never shoot to kill for sport an animal unless it had imperiled
my own life. (But maybe, my mother-in-law!)

Another aspect of owning or being authorized to use a weapon is that you

have to clean the damn thing! Cleaning a CAR-15 after its fring with tracer
bullets, is not a pleasant task. And ask any redleg (the artillerymen who fre
howitzers) what it is like to clean the barrel of a howitzer! It's no fun believe
me. I remember cleaning my M-16 in my hooch at night, with monsoon rains
beating down, near the borders of Cambodia and Laos, with oil patches and a
cleaning rodusing a fashlight with a red flter! (I wished I had joined the
Navy!)

Now for some serious advice about owning a frearm. I recommend that you
put two blanks in the frst and second chambers of your pistol. If you are at
home, and you frmly believe there is an intruder in your home, fring your
pistol two times, nine out of ten times, will scare the trespasser away. If not,
you might have to shoot at him or her. DO NOT SHOOT TO KILL. SHOOT
TO MAIM. Shoot at an arm if you are a good shot. If not, shoot at your
interloper's legs. If you kill your unwelcome person you are going to be in hot
water, and for a number of reasons. The Law. Your victim's friends and family
members are not going to be happy with you, and they might even seek to
avenge the death of their fellow family member or close acquaintance. And, if
they don't kill you, they might harass you for the rest of your life with middle-
of-the-night calls and whatever. In addition, if you kill you are going to be
burdened with that thought forever. I probably never killed in Vietnam, but
some nights, when I was in charge of a battery, we fred H&I rounds
(Harassment & Interdiction) every ffteen minutes or so just to keep the enemy
on his or her toesit was said. It was never reported to me that someone had
been killed by the rounds I had ordered. Nevertheless, I have known
individuals who have killed. (When I was studying for an MA in English at the
University of Florida, I sold whiskey and wine for the Fulton Distributing
Company of Jacksonville, and one of my clients was an ex-LRRP recently out
of Vietnam. John was a killer killer. He told me he had slit throats so he didn't
have to give his position away fring his AK-47. John was paranoid. Every two
or three months he had to go in for psychiatric treatment after going berserk
drunk on white German Rhine wine and drugs. He had to hunt, he said, to
get the killing out of him. Who knows how many people John had killed in
war, but killing one person will stick with one's conscience for even ever
more.) If you must stop an aggression launch at you by another person, always
try to maim. By doing so, you can then go to the hospital and visit your
attacker and offer your apologiesadvising him or her that you will shoot
again if he or she tries to rob you again. You might even become lifelong
friends! It is not nice to see people all bandaged up after being shot. In
Vietnam, I went to a feld hospital to visit grunts who had been wounded
during the battle for Dak To. Many had had thoracic surgery or had been shot
in their arms and legs. There was a sea of white sheets and white bandages
with blood seeping through the gauze of the medical dressings. Guns hurt.
Don't hurt. Don't get hurt.

Authored by Anthony St. John

19 August MMXVII
Calenzano, Italy
www.scribd.com/thewordwarrior

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