Artie
11-21-2002, 06:13 AM
Monday, November 18, 2002
BY MERCEDES VARASTEH
KALAMAZOO GAZETTE
John Badham vividly remembers his first experience shooting a gun. When he was 14, a female friend invited him out to her farm near Kalamazoo for some target shooting, and the pair spent the day "plinking" walnuts off a tree.
A few decades later, the pair are now happily married and Badham says he's maintained his love of shooting.
"It's a very disciplined event," said Badham, who is the director of the gallery pistol program for the Southwest Michigan Gun Club and a pistol smith for On Target Guns and Gunsmithing. "Even if you think about (kids' games) of picking up a stone and trying to hit a target, all of those games are target games. It's challenging, and there's always ways to improve."
It's a simple fact largely ignored in a major national debate: Like them or hate them, guns are immensely compelling objects. And in the United States -- where estimates put the number of civilian firearms at well over 200 million -- that innate magnetism is only superficially understood.
Glenn Meyer, a psychology professor at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, said it's unknown what personality factors are shared by gun owners. Many, he said, seek to inoculate themselves against trouble. Others simply enjoy pulling the trigger.
"I think it may fall generally into the rubric of trying something semi-dangerous in a controlled environment, kind of like riding roller coasters," said Meyer, who researches firearms use.
Paxton Quigley, a firearms expert and author who said she has taught more than 7,000 women how to shoot a gun, said people are often surprised by a weapon's power. About half her students express awe.
"After shooting about six rounds, their eyes light up and they all say the same thing: Wow. They never expected it to be that loud, and if they're in an indoor range (they're surprised by) the flashback. It gives them a rush. They have instigated that power."
Gun owners describe the attraction more simply: A firearm, used safely at a target range or in a duck hunt, is no different than a golfer's favorite club or a car collector's prized Corvette.
"I enjoy weapons," said Andrew Williams, 52, a retired electrical engineer from Jessup, Md., shooting his rifle during target practice at the Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore in Marriottsville.
"Do I sit there and fondle my guns at night? No.
"I enjoy getting out in the country, getting away from the city, socializing with like-minded people. When you're shooting, it takes so much concentration that, at least momentarily, your everyday problems are not in your thinking."
Badham has shot competitively for years, and while he says that many people who purchase guns or rifles use them only for setting up targets in the woods or their back yards (known as "plinking" in the gun world), other shooters take the sport very seriously. There are Pan-American shooting games, a World Cup competition and shooting is even featured in the Olympics.
Eric Weeldreyer, owner of On Target, has won eight national pistol shooting titles and is a member of the U.S. shooting team. Participating in shooting tournaments has allowed him to travel everywhere from California to Finland.
"I've had a wonderful life and shooting has been a big part of it," he said. "A lot of kids that I grew up with didn't shoot and didn't compete but had the same kind of attitude I did, and most of them went to jail.
"I could go out and compete, and do the fun stuff I wanted to do, and that kept me out of trouble."
Yet for many Americans, a gun's very power is a matter of dreadful inherent possibility.
Stephen P. Teret, a Johns Hopkins University professor who directs the Center for Law and the Public's Health, remembers the first time he shot a gun. He was a ninth grader, enrolled in the school rifle club to earn extracurricular credit.
"I was scared, actually," Teret recalls of his initial day at a garbage dump that served as a practice range. "I thought it was loud. I remember thinking, 'I ought not be able to create that much energy.' I knew something was wrong. Here I am, just a little dorky kid, but I'm pulling the trigger and releasing deadly force. Sure, I was just shooting this piece of paper. But somehow it seemed odd and improper."
Teret -- whose center studies gun violence as a public health problem -- acknowledged that millions of Americans use guns legitimately for sport. But the thrills in target shooting or hunting should not outweigh the need to limit guns and reduce gun violence, he said.
The number of gun deaths in the United States actually has been dropping gradually. Firearms claimed 28,874 lives in 1999, the most recent year for which federal statistics are available. That represents a 27 percent decline compared to 1993. Nearly six in 10 were suicides.
The portion of American households containing a gun also has dipped recently, according to Jens Ludwig, a Georgetown University assistant professor of public policy and co-author of the 1996 book "Guns in America."
Through the 1980s, Ludwig said, about half of U.S. households had guns. By the mid-'90s, the proportion dropped to about 35 percent, a trend Ludwig attributes to more households headed by women and fewer people living in rural areas where gun ownership is more common.
Yet the number of guns in circulation is believed to be climbing. Ludwig said that Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms statistics show that between 4 million and 7 million guns are manufactured annually for domestic use.
"The explanation is, people who have guns have a lot of them," Ludwig said. "The people with guns are adding to their arsenals."
Researchers say the strongest predictor of gun ownership is not politics, income, place of residence or race, but tradition -- whether you grew up with a gun in your home.
"You're more than twice as likely to have a gun yourself if your parents had a gun," Ludwig said.
Battle Creek resident Brian Setzler watches as a clerk at On Target Guns and Gunsmithing places his newly purchased, neatly wrapped shotgun across the counter. Setzler, a Minnesota native, plans on deer hunting this season and said he is excited to return to the sport after an eight-year absence.
"My father brought me to the deer camp for the first time when I was 16 years old, and (after moving from Minnesota) I didn't know anyone and didn't have a place to hunt," Setzler said.
"I like the peace and quiet of being out in the woods, and knowing that I am doing some good for the environment and that these deer won't starve to death."
BY MERCEDES VARASTEH
KALAMAZOO GAZETTE
John Badham vividly remembers his first experience shooting a gun. When he was 14, a female friend invited him out to her farm near Kalamazoo for some target shooting, and the pair spent the day "plinking" walnuts off a tree.
A few decades later, the pair are now happily married and Badham says he's maintained his love of shooting.
"It's a very disciplined event," said Badham, who is the director of the gallery pistol program for the Southwest Michigan Gun Club and a pistol smith for On Target Guns and Gunsmithing. "Even if you think about (kids' games) of picking up a stone and trying to hit a target, all of those games are target games. It's challenging, and there's always ways to improve."
It's a simple fact largely ignored in a major national debate: Like them or hate them, guns are immensely compelling objects. And in the United States -- where estimates put the number of civilian firearms at well over 200 million -- that innate magnetism is only superficially understood.
Glenn Meyer, a psychology professor at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, said it's unknown what personality factors are shared by gun owners. Many, he said, seek to inoculate themselves against trouble. Others simply enjoy pulling the trigger.
"I think it may fall generally into the rubric of trying something semi-dangerous in a controlled environment, kind of like riding roller coasters," said Meyer, who researches firearms use.
Paxton Quigley, a firearms expert and author who said she has taught more than 7,000 women how to shoot a gun, said people are often surprised by a weapon's power. About half her students express awe.
"After shooting about six rounds, their eyes light up and they all say the same thing: Wow. They never expected it to be that loud, and if they're in an indoor range (they're surprised by) the flashback. It gives them a rush. They have instigated that power."
Gun owners describe the attraction more simply: A firearm, used safely at a target range or in a duck hunt, is no different than a golfer's favorite club or a car collector's prized Corvette.
"I enjoy weapons," said Andrew Williams, 52, a retired electrical engineer from Jessup, Md., shooting his rifle during target practice at the Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore in Marriottsville.
"Do I sit there and fondle my guns at night? No.
"I enjoy getting out in the country, getting away from the city, socializing with like-minded people. When you're shooting, it takes so much concentration that, at least momentarily, your everyday problems are not in your thinking."
Badham has shot competitively for years, and while he says that many people who purchase guns or rifles use them only for setting up targets in the woods or their back yards (known as "plinking" in the gun world), other shooters take the sport very seriously. There are Pan-American shooting games, a World Cup competition and shooting is even featured in the Olympics.
Eric Weeldreyer, owner of On Target, has won eight national pistol shooting titles and is a member of the U.S. shooting team. Participating in shooting tournaments has allowed him to travel everywhere from California to Finland.
"I've had a wonderful life and shooting has been a big part of it," he said. "A lot of kids that I grew up with didn't shoot and didn't compete but had the same kind of attitude I did, and most of them went to jail.
"I could go out and compete, and do the fun stuff I wanted to do, and that kept me out of trouble."
Yet for many Americans, a gun's very power is a matter of dreadful inherent possibility.
Stephen P. Teret, a Johns Hopkins University professor who directs the Center for Law and the Public's Health, remembers the first time he shot a gun. He was a ninth grader, enrolled in the school rifle club to earn extracurricular credit.
"I was scared, actually," Teret recalls of his initial day at a garbage dump that served as a practice range. "I thought it was loud. I remember thinking, 'I ought not be able to create that much energy.' I knew something was wrong. Here I am, just a little dorky kid, but I'm pulling the trigger and releasing deadly force. Sure, I was just shooting this piece of paper. But somehow it seemed odd and improper."
Teret -- whose center studies gun violence as a public health problem -- acknowledged that millions of Americans use guns legitimately for sport. But the thrills in target shooting or hunting should not outweigh the need to limit guns and reduce gun violence, he said.
The number of gun deaths in the United States actually has been dropping gradually. Firearms claimed 28,874 lives in 1999, the most recent year for which federal statistics are available. That represents a 27 percent decline compared to 1993. Nearly six in 10 were suicides.
The portion of American households containing a gun also has dipped recently, according to Jens Ludwig, a Georgetown University assistant professor of public policy and co-author of the 1996 book "Guns in America."
Through the 1980s, Ludwig said, about half of U.S. households had guns. By the mid-'90s, the proportion dropped to about 35 percent, a trend Ludwig attributes to more households headed by women and fewer people living in rural areas where gun ownership is more common.
Yet the number of guns in circulation is believed to be climbing. Ludwig said that Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms statistics show that between 4 million and 7 million guns are manufactured annually for domestic use.
"The explanation is, people who have guns have a lot of them," Ludwig said. "The people with guns are adding to their arsenals."
Researchers say the strongest predictor of gun ownership is not politics, income, place of residence or race, but tradition -- whether you grew up with a gun in your home.
"You're more than twice as likely to have a gun yourself if your parents had a gun," Ludwig said.
Battle Creek resident Brian Setzler watches as a clerk at On Target Guns and Gunsmithing places his newly purchased, neatly wrapped shotgun across the counter. Setzler, a Minnesota native, plans on deer hunting this season and said he is excited to return to the sport after an eight-year absence.
"My father brought me to the deer camp for the first time when I was 16 years old, and (after moving from Minnesota) I didn't know anyone and didn't have a place to hunt," Setzler said.
"I like the peace and quiet of being out in the woods, and knowing that I am doing some good for the environment and that these deer won't starve to death."