Some time after I bought my first gun, I got a robocall from the National Rifle Association, asking me to join. After the customary "Please stay on the line …" from a pleasant but earnest voice, I recoiled from the barkings of an angry-sounding man: "Did I know that Barack Hussein Obama and European leaders are meeting on American soil right now, at this very moment, to plot the confiscation of my guns?"
The caller continued with his insinuations of an imminent United Nations plot against America, but before I could be handed off to a live operator, I hung up the phone.
I was amused, and then insulted, that someone would think I was dumb enough to fall for such a pitch. But the sad truth is that there are enough people willing to open their checkbooks to make such a noxious fundraising appeal worthwhile.
The NRA claims to have 5 million dues-paying members (though there's some reason to believe this figure is inflated). That sounds formidable, until one considers that there are approximately 50 million adults who own firearms. Still, the organization has successfully positioned itself as the singular representation of gun owners. For decades, it has worked to defend and expand access to firearms in spite of polls showing that most Americans, including gun owners, favor laws that would limit access in various reasonable ways (even three-quarters of NRA households favor background checks prior to private gun sales). But when a U.S. congresswoman was shot in the face, the NRA made certain that no law was passed that would have made her safer. There's no doubt that the NRA does have some grass-roots support, but it's smaller than we think. The NRA does not represent all gun owners, and it certainly doesn't represent me.
If I hate the NRA so much, why did I buy a gun at 37? As a meat eater with no particular desire to become a vegetarian, I wanted to confront the fact of killing animals for food. Once I took up hunting, I discovered that I relished the time I spent off the grid. Some might scratch this itch with a weekend camping trip. I chose to trudge into the woods before dawn, often in freezing temperatures, to keep a silent vigil in the trees as the morning light begins to filter through the branches. I rarely see a deer. Such a contemplative, frequently fruitless endeavor isn't for everyone, but it suits me.
My guns are long guns, intended for hunting and skeet shooting. Relatively few crimes are committed with hunting weapons, which are designed to shoot animals, not humans. (In fact, knives are more commonly used to commit murder than long guns.) Meanwhile, the death toll from handguns is staggering, especially when we remember that the majority of gun deaths are suicides.
But as crucial as this distinction between hunting guns and handguns is, the fact that I am among America's gun owners puts my conscience to the test, particularly when horrific, random and widely reported violence tears at the fabric of my own community, and my own social network.
Last Feb. 10 in Chapel Hill, N.C., 15 miles from my home in Durham, three young Americans of Middle Eastern descent were shot to death by a home invader. The killer was their neighbor, notorious and feared around the apartment complex for flashing his perfectly legal concealed handgun. Without his weapon, he would have been an angry — but perhaps harmless — crank. With it, he snuffed out three lives in a matter of seconds. The deaths affected our community profoundly; everyone seemed to know someone who knew the victims.