What If I Owned A Gun

What If I Owned A Gun

By Charles E. Kraus

published in The Oregonian and The Baltimore

You are a law abiding citizen in a world that feels less and less safe.  You have kids to protect, or a husband, a wife, property -- not to mention securing your own wellbeing.   You are trying to figure out if owning a sidearm would be a good idea. Hopefully you would never need to use it.  But knowing it was available might give you some piece of mind.

Perhaps.

In this age of terror, I’m trying to figure out when and where owning a sidearm is helpful.  If someone breaks into my house.  I confront him.  He doesn’t have a gun.  I do.  I say, hold it right there.  He does.  I call the police.  Works fine.

Or, he has a gun, sees mine and we end up in a shoot out.  Not so fine.

Cops train.  Not just target practice, they rehearse situations.  They know, or are supposed to know, when to use their weapons, how to protect innocent bystanders.  Sharp shooters pinpoint their shots.  Can you? If you had a weapon and there were lots of people around, could you cause your bullets to land where you wanted them to go?

Crowded store.  Two terrorist.  Assault weapons.  I pull out my pistol and fire back.  Assuming I don’t hit a shopper or sales clerk, I’m guessing, what with such little opportunity to take careful aim, I shoot and miss.  The folks with the AK47s are going to return my fire.  Not good.

I’m in a crowded theater, sports arena, restaurant, subway, on a bus, or sadly, at a Christmas event in a social service center.  Exactly how would I put my gun to good use?  I might shot a perpetrator.  In all that chaos?  Perhaps.  Maybe if I was in the hall, and realized what was happening, and if I didn’t run away.  If I crawled in, kept low, took careful aim.  Maybe I’d hit a terrorist and save dozens of lives.  That could happen.  Or have I been watching too many movies?

If  a guy harmed one of my kids.  I’d use the gun. If I was in a situation where I honestly believed a loved one was going to be seriously harmed, or that I was about to become the victim, I’d use what I had.

I wonder, if I carried a weapon, what the chances might be that a thug could overpower me, that my gun would end up on the other side of the equation.  I wonder how many times a mere criminal, not a cold blooded terrorist, had come to rob, been confronted by an armed victim, panicked, grabbed the weapon and put it to bad use.

Guns have kickbacks, they are loud, pulling the trigger means creating a minor explosion right there at the end of your arm.  People who do target practice often wear ear protectors.  I’m not saying you would worry about your hearing while you were in the midst of a gun battle.  I’m saying the kick and the blast and the situation, the fear, the uncertainty, the activity, the tension, the confusion, these things do not contribute to a steady hand.   

  I’m wondering, in the middle of terror, if people are dying, and the police arrive.  Do they see weapons and fire at those holding them?  The terrorists and the terrorized? In their haste do they have or take the time to figure it out?  Hopefully they do.  That is their intension.
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This essay appeared in the December 15, 2015 edition of the Baltimore Sun.