16 May 2021
I read the other day that the National Rifle Association (NRA) lost their court battle with the state of New York. The NRA was trying to declare bankruptcy in New York state (the NRA was chartered in New York state) so they could escape a fraud and self-dealing suit brought by New York’s Attorney General.
What I find interesting is that the NRA is being accused of what most right-to-work states accuse unions of doing – having the union leadership live a life high on the hog and misusing funds of the union.
The NRA has undergone significant changes since my childhood days. I’ve previously written about Boy Scout Expositions at the state fairgrounds in Mississippi. Once a year, the Andrew Jackson Council of Boy Scouts of America would put on an expo where troops from the council would choose some topic and use a booth at the expo to expound on that topic.
One year, we chose gun safety. It was a no brainer because there had been a lot of accidental shootings during hunting trips in the state and it was getting out of control. We used the NRA for information on gun safety. That was the purpose of the NRA at that time – gun safety. It had no political leanings and it had a very small membership and it certainly didn’t try to defend the use of military grade weapons.
At the expo, we built a “fence” in our booth and taught people how to properly cross over a fence with a shotgun or rifle. We had both in the booth. You would always break the shotgun and remove the shells and leave the gun broken if you had someone to hand the shotgun to or snap it back into position and lean on the opposite side of the fence if not.
For a rifle, you would remove any shells from the rifle, lean it on the other side of the fence and then cross. I personally know of one person who lost their leg in a hunting accident where they leaned their gun on the opposite side of the fence, climbed over the fence, the gun tipped and discharged and wounded the person. We provided good NRA information and we demonstrated how to properly do the action with a shotgun and rifle.
Back then, handguns weren’t really mentioned as hunting tools so we didn’t broach that subject. I’m amazed that the council let us bring two guns into the exposition but those were different days. Can you image what would happen today if you brought two guns into a public facility – even in Mississippi?
If you were male and living in the south, you came into contact with guns. I’ve been around them all my life and have a healthy respect for them. I remember Dad showing me how to load and shoot a 22 rifle as a kid and what to do and not to do with a loaded weapon. Archie and I would have shooting contests – usually in gravel pits – and just so you know, I would often outshoot him.
I remember one time at a gravel pit behind David Earl Walter’s house in Morton where Archie threw a bottle into some standing water, handed me a pistol and said “see if you can hit it.” I did with the first shot, shattering the glass and sinking it to the bottom. He was livid! If you don’t know, shooting a pistol accurately is far more difficult than shooting a rifle. Those old westerns where everyone is a dead-eye shot may or may not have been true but accuracy with a pistol is challenging.
The closest I ever came to being shot was in Mr. Marler’s house in Morton. I was sitting in the dining room next to the heater because it was so cold that day. Dad was cleaning a pistol at the table and he went to reload it. Somehow the pistol went off and I looked next to me at the floor and there was a bullet hole.
The closest Archie has been to being shot was with his very young daughter Ashley. He was showing her a pistol that had a hair trigger. She didn’t know it was loaded and pointed the gun at him. As he raised his hand to move the pistol away from him, it went off. It just missed him.
I actually have been shot – twice with a BB gun. Archie, ever the trouble maker, used to have “wars” with the neighborhood kids in Boyle, Mississippi. The war was fought with BB guns. What separated us from the other “side” was a bayou. We built a fort on our side of the bayou and went at it. BB’s would fly thickly through the air. I think we had 4 or 5 on our side and they the same on the other side of the bayou. With the distance, I suspect the BB was on its last leg as it flew over the bayou. I wasn’t allowed to shoot – just serve as the reloader for the others. I got pretty good at quickly reloading BBs in everyones’ guns.
Apparently, I raised up to look at the other side at the wrong time and got a BB right between the eyes. It stung. The other time, Archie shot me as he was cocking his BB gun (back then, you had to cock the gun in order for it to fire). As he was cocking it, it went off and hit me in the side. That hurt like hell. We were all lucky we didn’t shoot each others’ eyes out. We also probably ran with scissors.
Back to guns. Ruby had a gun after Hollie died. Often she was alone in the house and slept with it by her bedside. It was a 22 pistol mostly loaded with rat shot. Rat shot is exactly what it sounds like – you used it to kill rats. It gave her some sense or protection.
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That particular pistol had a long history in our family. Once when Mom and Dad were on the outs and Mom was staying at Ruby’s with me, Dad came pounding on the door drunk wanting to see Mom. Ruby refused him entry and he barged in anyway. Ruby got the gun and she and Dad fought for control of it. Dad knocked it out of her and and it skittered across the floor. I ran to the phone and called the only person I knew to depend on – Aunt Mabel. She came down and broke up the fight and restored calm. What was scary is that gun could have gone off at any time and shot any of the three of us.
When Ruby died, I inherited the pistol and kept it with me for years. I kept it loaded with rat shot and even had the opportunity to try to hit a rat or two. Later, I gave the gun to Archie who gave it to Tanis who was working in downtown Jackson. She sometimes worked late and Archie wanted her to have some protection. Her car got broken into and the gun was stolen.
I really am (or was) a pretty good shot. One day in boot camp we were loaded on a bus and driven to Fort Ord (no longer an active base). We were given instruction on a 45 pistol and the M-16 rifle. We were required to break them down, clean them, and reassemble them within a specified time. After an all morning session of instruction and cleaning we were sent to the firing range.
If you’ve never fired a gun before, the real effect is the kick. Remember that for every action there’s an opposite but equal reaction. If you consider the muzzle velocity of a bullet leaving the gun, it produces a pretty significant kick, whether a pistol or rifle. The heavier the gun, the more the weight of the gun mitigates the kick. The higher powered the ammo, the greater the kick. If you don’t hold the weapon correctly, you can get a pretty good bruise – to the shoulder with a rifle and to your head with a handgun.
A typical muzzle velocity of a Colt 45 pistol is around 860 feet per second. The gun is heavy but even so, there’s a pretty good kick to the pistol. We were taught to grip it with two hands. If you are trying to get off several rounds quickly, it affects your ability to hit the target because you have to bring it back into firing position every time. I shot expert with the 45 at Fort Ord. Out of our company, there were only two of us.
The Colt 45 has an interesting history tied to the Philippine occupation after the Spanish-American War. Moro warriors would charge American positions and the standard service 38 would not stop them. Often the person firing the 38 at the Moro warrior ended up hacked to death. The Colt 45 had enough stopping power that if the bullet hit you, it knocked you down.
Next up at the range was the M-16. There are three settings for the M-16. Single round fire, semi-automatic fire and fully automatic. We were not allowed to fire at automatic (similar to what a machine gun will do). However, it was demonstrated. If you aim at the target on fully automatic and pull the trigger, by the time you take your finger off the trigger, you are almost shooting directly overhead because each round kicks the gun higher and higher.
At single round fire, if you are quick enough on the trigger, you can get of 12 to 15 rounds per minute. In other words, in one minute, you can fire 12 to 15 bullets at the target – that’s the amount of time for the chamber to reload, you re-aim the gun and pull the trigger. For semi-automatic, you can fire 40-60 rounds per minute. On fully automatic (technically called cyclic) you can fire 700-950 rounds per minute (Wikipedia). That’s a lot of firepower. In the U.S. citizens can own a similar gun to the M-16 called the AR-15 but it is not allowed to be fully automatic, however, it can fire 40-60 rounds per minute and with the addition of a bump stock can increase that rate to 400-800 rounds per minute.
In any case, I also shot expert with the M-16. Not many people can do both.
I don’t trust most people with guns. There have been too many incidents where they act a fool. I was deer hunting with a friend one day in north Mississippi. I was reluctant when I found it was a large group of hunters. In any case, I was heading back to the vehicle when I rounded a blind corner and a kid pointed his rifle at me thinking I was a deer – in an international orange vest.
A good friend, Charlie Cooper, tells of his Sunday School class wanting him to take them hunting. He felt obligated and so he agreed. They all arrived at the agreed upon location. A fire was built since it was a bitterly cold morning and they were all standing around the fire drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and telling stories when a rabbit ran right through their circle around the fire. They all immediately pulled out their guns started shooting at the rabbit – it escaped. Charlie calmly got into his car and left them standing there.
Charlie had good reason. He was alone hunting in the woods one year standing next to a tree when someone shot him in the head from a distance. Fortunately it was a glancing shot but it knocked him unconscious. Whoever shot him left him for dead in the woods. I wish the NRA would go back to gun safety.
The stupidest thing I ever saw with guns was a national airing of a shooter in downtown New Orleans. Mark Essex starting shooting white men and women and eventually in the coursre of killing made it to the downtown Howard Johnsons. As with any crisis situation, things got out of hand. A group of police officers thought they had Essex contained in the stairwell on the roof of the HJ. The door to the stairwell was on the roof and it was a metal door. Around 15 policemen formed a semicircle around the door. Apparently a shot was heard and they all began firing at the door thinking they were under fire. You saw on national tv police officers starting to fall wounded. That made the remaining officers increase their fire – more falling wounded. It took a few minutes to realize the police officers were being hit by their own bullets which were ricocheting off the metal door. Essex was later found much further down the stairwell, already dead.
I own two guns. One is a 38 caliber pistol and the other is a 12 gauge shotgun. The reason I own two guns is another event in New Orleans. It was after Hurricane Katrina when the only people seemingly in town were the poor Blacks who had no way out of the city and the police. Some of the police broke into the Cadillac dealership and stole some of the cars. It’s also suspected some police broke into homes. Another group of police later accosted a group of Blacks trying to cross the Industrial Canal on the Danziger Bridge. To be totally fair, three officers were white and two Black. The police told them they would shoot them if they tried to cross the bridge. Two unarmed Black men were killed and four others were wounded. The police tried to cover up the incident. To be honest, you needed a gun to protect yourself from the police in New Orleans.
I don’t like guns. I have them but I don’t like them. I do know how to use them and until my eyesight fails completely, I can usually still hit the target. If I had my druthers, I would prefer a system like in England where all guns are registered and permits required. I would prefer to see mandatory safety courses for owning a gun with renewals required every five years. Then maybe the NRA can get back to gun safety issues.