here were floor displays of AR-15s, and probably a hundred or more other rifles and shotguns for anyone to walk up and hold. I watched a kid about 8 or 9 pick up one of those ARs and shoulder it to the center of his chest. He held the gun awkwardly, cocked his head hard to the side, squeezed one eye closed to aim and dry-fired the weapon. I watched two men, presumably his father and grandfather, smile and laugh, then break out their cellphones to snap a few pictures.
...Maybe it’s how I was raised and the types of firearms my family kept, but the idea of owning a rifle designed for engaging human targets out to 600 meters just never interested me.
...A few days after the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., in February, I sat down with a buddy over coffee at the firehouse where he works. The news was on in the background. I told him I’d be fine with an assault-weapons ban. He cut a look in my direction as if I’d absolutely lost my mind. I asked him why anyone needs to own an AR, an AK, an SKS. He said that the question is irrelevant, that the reason doesn’t supersede the right. I could feel my blood pressure rising and my face getting warm. I could see in his eyes that he was equally agitated. Despite everything we have in common, despite the fact that he’s my best friend and we were going squirrel hunting in a few days, the two of us fundamentally disagree. Someone came into the room and changed the subject, and I could sense that he was as thankful as I was. As sad as it is to say, the silence is easier. While the two of us sat there sipping coffee, there were kids on the television in the background, high school survivors who were willing to say what we are not, and I was ashamed.
...We were at the back of the store looking in the glass case at 1911s. All of a sudden, her eyes got big and she raised her hands then ducked behind me and grabbed onto my arm. I turned and stared down the aisle where a kid who looked about 18 was aiming an AR-15 the salesman had handed him. The muzzle was pointed in our direction. Ashley was terrified. I’ve been at the counter enough to know the predicament — wanting to shoulder a rifle to test the feel but having nowhere sensible to aim. The kid lowered the rifle and went back to talking to the salesman, neither seeming to notice us standing there, Ashley frozen behind me.
On the way out, she just kept saying: “He was a kid. He looked like he should’ve been in high school. What does a kid need a rifle like that for? What does anybody need a rifle like that for?” And the truth was, I didn’t have an answer. The truth is, there are guns I feel justified in owning and guns I feel belong on battlefields. I know the reasons my friends give for owning these weapons, and I know that their answers feel inadequate to me. I know that part of what they’re missing or refusing to acknowledge is how fear ushered in this shift in gun culture over the past two decades.