Tell Me Your Gun History

What is your gun history?

I’ll tell you mine.

Both sides of my family come from rural origins— poverty and prosperity, depending on the maternal or paternal line.

My grandparents’ generation kept guns for hunting, and to put down livestock when something went wrong.

That’s all I knew of guns when I was little. I felt sorry for a snakebit gelding when I knew he had to be put out of his misery.

All the men in my family served in the Army or Navy— the older generation was drafted; my cousins volunteered. Some of them were tragically affected by military culture, others found it to be the ticket “out of Dodge” they’d always yearned for, out of poverty and prejudice, to things like the GI Bill, college, moving up. 

My mother and father were explicit pacifists, activists against all wars. They were the first ones to go to college. They defied their cousins. The first time I heard a particular long word it was because my (drafted) father said, “Army Intelligence is an oxymoron. 

I remember a te…