Back in 2000 I worked for a private ambulance company in Dallas, TX.  I had become part of a fairly tight knit clique of individuals.  And as will often happen with EMS cliques, we went drinking on a semi-regular basis.  One of the kids who had gone drinking with us on one particular outing (I use the term kid for this 21 year old) was completely obliterated and devoid of all sense, reason, and reflexes.  We were well into a conversation where he was about to agree to sleep on our couch, but his last protest was that he needed his car in the morning.  Miraculously I had only had a couple of beers over the last three hours, so I thought I would help him out.  I offered to drive his car back to my place, and he accepted.

After I poured him into the car that my wife was driving, I took the keys from him.  “Be careful,” he slurred “I think the inspection sticker is a little past due.”

I turned around to find a car of unknown make and model.  There were so many replacement parts that were taken from a junkyard, it was hard to discern what the original design and shape of the vehicle had been.  It looked like a four door sedan that you might find on the set of ‘The Road Warrior.’

I got in the driver’s side and the car instantly sank.  I could stand to lose a few pounds, but I am not that overweight by any means.  The car took a while to start after I turned the key, and it took a while for the metallic grinding sound to die down before I felt comfortable pulling out of its parking space.  Upon first inspection of the cab I caught the inspection sticker that is in the corner of all windshields in Texas.  I saw the number ‘9’ and didn’t think much of it.  He said it was a little out of date, and this made sense.  But something felt out of place, and it wasn’t until a few minutes later that I finally saw the date in its entirety.  1989.  This piece of crap hadn’t been inspected in 11 years.

I pulled out of the parking space and found another annoying aspect of this vehicle.  I am not much of a mechanic but I know that cars are not supposed to rhythmically raise and lower with every turn of the axel.  The faster I went, the worse it got, until I hit a sort of terminal velocity where the problem became a vibration that threatened to tear the vehicle apart at the seams.  It wasn’t until I got to my first stop light that I learned how spongy the breaks were.  As I approached the intersection I found my self standing on them to stop the damn thing.  Just before the white line of the cross walk the car decided to shudder to a halt and I felt and heard a thump-thump-thump under my feet. 

The light turned green again before I could get a good look at the object that was now under the accelerator pedal.  Cars were behind me and I was impatient to get going again so I pressed the accelerator before I was able to see what it was.  But with every street lamp I passed, it became more apparent that it was a weapon.  At the next stop light I reached down between my legs and pulled out a giant .357 long barreled hand cannon.  This weapon was probably worth more than the car I was driving, and it was loaded.  I set it in the passenger seat with the barrel pointing away from me.

I was pretty angry when I got back to my apartment.  I had passed two cops on the way and they luckily had better things to do than pull me over. What if I had been caught with an eleven year old inspection sticker, an unregistered hand cannon, a car that wasn’t registered to me and two beers on my breath?  I was about to tear into our new house guest but my wife cut me short as he had already passed out on our couch.

*               *               *

I have never understood the propensity for EMS personnel to be so obsessed with firearms and self defense.  On more than one occasion I have taught a paramedic class and went outside during a break to find a group of students comparing car-kept firearms.  This is also common at fire departments.  I have walked in on many group gun cleaning sessions in front of the TV at a fire station in which I was posting.

Unlike so many of my co-workers, I have a liberal mindset.  I think the ownership of certain kinds of guns is distasteful and dangerous.  This is in stark contrast to most of my conservative co-workers.  However, the older I get, the more I become bored with the usual arguments between the two camps.  There are several things that both sides believe that are never spoken and never said.  This is what interests me more than the same tired old arguments.

I wrote a post about racism not long ago that produced a lot of positive responses and personal emails of thanks for actually putting words to a problem that is never discussed.  If someone ever says anything other than the requisite, “I support the troops!” you get drummed out of the argument.  The truth is that there are many wonderful people who are sacrificing themselves for the sake of our freedoms, and I commend them.  But there are also those people who go around using the words “sand nigger” to describe the folks they are attempting to liberate.  I simply do not support those troops.  There.  I said it.  That is something that a liberal will never tell you because they are afraid that Ann Coulter is going to jump out from behind a bush and shriek “Traitor!” while she is pointing in your direction.  My post on racism seemed to strike a chord with many people so I am going to attempt to again step outside the usual ‘acceptable’ arguments and tell you the real reason why most liberals call for more gun control.

At the danger of making Charlton Heston do summersaults in his grave…here goes.

First of all I would like to say that I was brought up to believe that firearms were a tool, and nothing more.  My dad grew up on a farm in South Texas.  This was back in the 1940’s when growing up on a farm still meant riding on horseback, and using a real plow.  My dad owned several guns.  He used to ride around on his favorite horse shooting wild javalina.  He liked to ride his horse but he did not necessarily enjoy hunting.  It was work.  Local farmers would pay him five cents for the carcass of a dead javalina that once lived on their property.  The cartridge cost him a half a penny.  So being a good shot maximized profits.

Later he joined the army and his commanding officers learned of his experience with firearms and they pressed him to be in a competition shooting team.  He participated in all that ninja sharp shooter stuff like shooting between heartbeats.  He won a few competitions and was decorated for his achievements. 

I was unaware of this when I was growing up until he taught me how to shoot a BB gun one day.  At the time my father was an ad executive, and my Atticus Finch moment came when I saw him shoot a series of bottlecaps suspended from tree limbs.  He shot them all down from the hip.  I thought I was watching an episode of The Rifleman.  I had never seen my dad do anything remotely physical or cool and the realization that he was a sharp shooter was amazing.  But true to his heritage, he downplayed it.  “Son,” he said, “the army taught me how to do all that silly stuff, and it probably looks cool, but it’s a really stupid use for this tool.”  I think the last time my father ever fired a gun was that one afternoon by the lake.  And it wasn’t even a real firearm, just a BB gun.  He never missed it or talk wistfully about it.

I was only eleven years old when we went to spend Christmas day with my grandparents.  There was a big long present under the tree with my name on it and my curiosity was peaked.  I was finally allowed to open it and found a 20 gauge shotgun under the wrapping paper.  My dad was beside himself, “Why on earth wood you give him a gun?  And without even asking me?  What the hell, dad?”

“Well, the boy is eleven.  Isn’t it about time he learned how to shoot?”

“If we still lived on a farm,” my dad protested.  “I work in advertising and live in North Dallas.  There are no coyotes trying to eat our sheep.  We don’t need a gun.  The damn thing’s just dangerous.”

And this has always been my feeling towards firearms.  The world is not what it once was.  Most people have no need of these things.  I once asked dad if we should have a gun for self defense and he got angry at me.  “Buck, guns are cowardly.  There is no reason to kill anyone, even if he is robbing you.  I have never even known anyone in a situation where they needed to kill someone else.  Stop being ridiculous.”  Here was a man who had won shooting competitions, and he was truly disappointed in me for mentioning the ownership of a firearm.

However, most firearm enthusiasts will quote a ton of statistics to you.  I don’t want to point towards another blogger, but I did read a post a few days ago where a very smug writer was talking about how stupid liberal people were with their ridiculous statistics about the dangers of guns.  He then quoted his one big statistic that 50% of all Americans will be assaulted some time in their life.  And that was his big revelation and reason for toting around a concealed weapon.  Really.  That’s it.

I would expect this argument to show up on the Bad Science Blog.  I am not as eloquent as that author, but I will give this refutation a go.  If you live to the age of 80 years old, and lets say that you started carrying a concealed handgun at the age of 20 (Is that even legal?  Do you have to be 21?  Not important to the argument.  Just stay with me.)  you would have to carry that firearm with you everyday for the next 60 years to absolutely be sure that it would be there and ready in case that 50% chance came and you got attacked some day.

Now, I work on an ambulance and I have been attacked several times.  So the few times that this has been reported from yours truly probably skews the numbers a bit.  To be honest I never needed a firearm to solve any one of those attacks.  And honestly, a firearm would be inappropriate force to use in many of those instances.  Meanwhile, you carried a dangerous, expensive weapon around with you all of your life.  You kept it in your house while your kids grew up.  It was under your seat and freaked out that nice paramedic guy who was trying to drive your piece of crap car home for you.  All of these other criminals had a chance to steal it and use it on other people for 60 long years.

And all because there was a 50% chance that someone was going to attack you sometime in the next 60 years.  Whether or not you needed that level of force to defend yourself, you spent that 60 years being prepared by god!

There is a chance that I will be hit by a bus every time I cross the street.  So I take the reasonable precautions against this.  I look both ways before crossing.  I might be in a car wreck tomorrow, so I wear my seatbelt.  But these things are easy safety practices.  It would also make sense for me to wear a bullet proof vest everyday if I am afraid of this attack.  But I don’t.  The thought is just ridiculous.  You can’t live your life thinking that death is around the corner every second.

And you know what?  Death isn’t around the corner every second, but your dangerous gun is.  I have been in EMS for 15 years.  I have seen murders involving firearms.  I have seen people shoot toes off while cleaning their guns.  I have seen kids get hurt by sneaking out their parent’s weapons and discharging them.  I know of a cop in Denton, Texas who accidentally discharged his weapon in a classroom not once, but twice.  Every year I see firearms hurt people.

But I have yet to run a call because someone has called 911 after an intruder was shot by a good guy who was carrying his concealed weapon.  Really.  I have never run that call.  Ever.

Now that is anecdotal.  That is just my experience.  But I have asked that question in I don’t know how many EMT and paramedic classes.  I always ask, “Has any of you ever run a call on a bad guy that was shot cleanly by a good guy?  Ever?”  Only once has any member of one of my classes ever said yes to that question.  And they were so excited about it they were about to wet their pants.  We’ll talk about that phenomenon in a minute.  But for now let’s just use common sense to look at the statistics.  Yes, there is a chance that about half of us will get assaulted sometime.  Is a firearm at your side an appropriate solution when compared to the thousands upon thousands of accidental and intentional ‘bad shootings’ that completely dwarf the number of so called ‘good shootings’?  If you had a dangerous drug that killed and maimed thousands of people each year, would you administer it prophylactically to all of your patients on the outside chance that it might help a very tiny fraction of them?  Be honest now.  Use good science when you answer.  No cheating.

And now for the part of this post that exposes the bit of the liberal mind that is left unsaid in most arguments.  And that is that the ‘gun culture’ is a bunch of knuckle dragging idiots.  Now remember, my father owned a gun.  He used them for reasonable purposes.  He used them as a tool.  But he was not part of the ‘gun culture’.  Let me explain.

As I said, my father taught me that guns are a dangerous tool.  He once likened them to a circular saw, or a machete.  These were two other things in the house I was not allowed to touch until I was old enough and trained in their use.  However, I have yet to see a circular saw organization that has weekly meetings and tries to get legislation passed.  I have yet to see ‘Circular Saw Magazine’ with camouflage versions of blades and kung fu grips.  To be honest, there are tool magazines, and guys think they are cool too.  But you won’t ever see a video of Charlton Heston standing before a crowd of thousands who cheer as he says that they will have to pry his circular saw out of his cold dead hands.  Saw owners just aren’t that uptight.

When I was growing up, the neighbors who lived behind us were kind of weird and sad.  There was a series of childrens’ books that were popular during that time period called “The Stupids.”  My father had started referring to our neighbors as ‘The Stupids.’  One day he called out, “Buck!  Come quick!  You’ve gotta see what Mr. Stupid is doing!”  I came running because it was usually quite amusing.  I looked out our back window and across our lawn to where my dad was pointing and was disgusted to see the extremely obese Mr. Stupid walking around in front of his back window wearing nothing but his whitey-tighties.

“Gross!”  I protested.

“No wait,” my dad told me. “Look!  He’s wearing a gun belt and a pistol!”

Sure enough, there he was.  Parading around his house with his wife gone, wearing nothing but his gun and his underwear.  He was posing.  Looking in mirrors.  Practicing the quick draw.  You name it, he was doing it and we were laughing.

“Son,” my dad said, “If you ever act like that I am going to disown you.  Just don’t ever be an idiot like that.  Please.”

And I have tried.  But as I have said before, the unfortunate thing about our industry is that many of the people who work in it do so because it is the fastest point of entry to feeling important.  And most intelligent people in this business know exactly what I am talking about.  It is nearly impossible to hire a cop, a fireman, or an EMT without being inundated with a sea of applications from lame idiots who are desperate to feel important.  It is inevitable that some of these people slip through the cracks, and we all know it.  We have all worked with them.  They are the creepy guys.  They are the compulsive liars.  The guys who bore you to tears trying to drop hints that they were in the Navy Seals, or some other elite special force.  You know.  That guy.

Well guess what?  Another quick and easy point of entry to feeling important is gun ownership.  Hence Mr. Stupid gallivanting around in his whitey-tighties thwarting evil doers in every mirror of his house, much to our amusement.  That’s the ‘gun culture.’  Right there.  In a nutshell. 

Have you ever seen the inside of one of those gun or hunting magazines?  Do those publications look like they are aimed at an intelligent demographic?

I once had a student get kicked out of my class because he just had to own this automatic handgun instead of pay his tuition.  I talked to some classmates who knew him.

“Oh, he’s a freak.  He has got this weird ass sword collection,” said one student.

“Oh, yeah!  He showed me that one night!” chimed in another of his classmates. “He goes to those fucked up shows and buys anything with a freaking dragon on it.  He’s got some expensive camouflage ground cover thing in his garage too.  Makes him look like a pile of leaves.  This is the kind of crap they use to hide snipers in Afganistan.  I asked him what the hell it was for, and he couldn’t tell me.  That’s idiot has thousands of dollars of this shit!”

That’s the gun culture too.

Let’s go back to Atticus Finch for a moment.  If you haven’t read ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ I will clue you in.  A rabid dog walks down the street of this country town one night.  Mr. Finch’s kids see it and come running to tell everybody.  The neighbors tell Atticus and he goes down to the basement to get a rifle that his kids never even knew he owned.  He steps out into the street, aims, takes one shot, drops the rabid dog, and then goes and puts the gun back in the basement where his kids will never get to it.  That’s it.  And his kids are impressed.  Because their dad was cool.  He knew what to do, and how to get it done.

Later on in the book where he fails to defend the poor guy who thought he was just getting one helluva tip for busting up a chifforobe, he is walking out of the court when a woman scolds his kids, “You stand up!  Your father’s passing.”  If my daughter ever stands up because I am passing, it’ll be because I was honest and good and used the right tool for the right job.  It won’t be because I run around an empty house admiring my sidearm in the mirror, or I own a dragon covered sword collection.

And that’s what liberals are really thinking.  We get side tracked by these ridiculous arguments about statistics and how “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”  You know what?  You’re right.  Simple minded idiots who are desperate to feel important collect guns, and join the NRA, and own stupid crap like AK-47’s.  They litter the world with this garbage.  Meanwhile simple minded people across America are calling 911 after they blow their toes off, or discharge their weapon in a University of North Texas classroom…twice.  Us liberals, we know who you are.

If everyone was like Atticus Finch or my father we wouldn’t need an NRA.  Coyotes, javalina, and rabid dogs would get blown away by people who returned the weapon to their basement afterwards.  In hardware stores all around the country their would be bolt action rifles and shotguns, and no one would say anything about it because a hardware store is where you find tools like that.

So…you…the EMS worker who walks around in your underwear when no one is looking.  You…the guy wearing a sidearm who is about to blow your toe off.  You…the guy who would be flipping burgers if you weren’t an EMT.  I know you are desperate to feel important.  And I know you are using a lot of bad science to make excuses for why you need to carry that shiny, smooth, and cool looking penis extender under your clothes.  And you are making gun ownership needlessly complicated for those who would use them as the tool that they are.  The simple truth is that no one is going to tell your kids to stand while you are passing.  You are alone.  Just you and the mirror.