The Gun Show was at Jim Miller Park in Marietta GA. I was edgy being there, I thought for certain this place would be filled with gun toting lunatics who would surely spot me for the flaming commie liberal that I am but my fears were somewhat put at ease when I read the sign at the front:
CHECK ALL FIREARMS AND LOOSE AMMO AT DOOR
Well I guess that made me feel a little better, at least when I’m found out for who I really am these ignorant bastards will be a little less likely to mow me down in a hail of bullets. But the further I got into the show I found that I was the one being ignorant. I mean don’t get me wrong, there were a couple of scary looking people walking around, but to my surprise I found the crowd to be very nice and sociable. Turns out that a Gun Show is basically a flea market with guns and this one had a little bit of everything: assault rifles, swords, tasers, jewelry, and even Snuggies! I can only imagine how comforting it must be to clean your brand new double barreled shot gun while cozily wrapped up in a warm toasty Snuggy.
What surprised me more than the warmness of the people there was the ease in which one can buy a gun in Georgia. Whether you’re buying a .38 Snub Nose Revolver or an M4 Carbine Semi-Automatic Assault rifle, all it takes is a simple phone call and, providing that you’re not a felon, you can walk out of the Gun Show with your Great Equalizer that very same day!
Next on the hit parade I came upon author, former Marine, and self proclaimed professional irritant Tom Baugh. Tom was pimping his book Starving The Monkeys. The Monkeys in that ominous sounding title are not what you might think. According to a review of the book on freerepublic.com “Monkeys are the looters and moochers who essentially dine from the plates of the producers through the tax and legal structures they have put in place.” When I asked Tom what his book was about he called it a modern day Atlas Shrugged. From what I can gather the book seems to advocate that productive members of society “starve” the Monkeys by withholding their productive efforts. The “Producers” as Baugh likes to call them should not do this by refusing to pay taxes but by “…temporarily throttling back on their productive output, and thereby hastening the fall of the Monkey collective.” I’m not sure that America can throttle back anymore than it already has but maybe I’m just surrounded by Monkeys all the time!
Further weirdness came in the form of families selling guns. I saw a Mother, Father, and two daughters eerily sitting in front of a table of rifles all pointing at them like some kind of bizarre self induced firing squad. Creepier still were all the toy guns to get junior indoctrinated early on. Don’t get me wrong I believe in the right to bare arms but I just don’t understand the enthusiasm part of being a Gun Enthusiast. But then I’ve never shot a gun.
If I was intimated at the Gun Show just imagine how I felt when I entered Nick’s Guns, a gun store and shooting range. But just like the gun show I was in for another surprise. Nick’s is a family owned and operated joint and the people working there put me at ease immediately. I had never shot a gun before and they wanted to set me up with a .22 but I said, “Fuck That, give me a real gun!” So the guy laid a 9mm on me and showed me how the puppy worked. It was a pretty quick demo and to be honest I was little nervous but I figured as long as I didn’t point it at myself or anyone else I’d be fine. Now in case no one has told you, a gun range is loud, I mean really loud, the only thing louder is maybe Kiss in concert. I was nervous on my first clip, I was afraid the fucker was gonna knock me backwards through the wall but I held it like the guy showed me, gritted my teeth and pulled the trigger. You wanna know what it feels like to shoot a gun? You know how your Xbox controller vibrates when your playing Call Of Duty? Multiply that feeling by like a million and soak the controller in LSD and you might be close. It’s shocking, and thrilling at the same time but kinda scary too. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I went through about 50 rounds of ammo which took me about 20 minutes and I had no desire to shoot anymore. It wasn’t that I was disgusted or anything, to be honest I’ll probably do it again, but I was just done. It was very similar to the feeling you have after 20 minutes of insane and dirty sex; you just wanna smoke a cigarette and have a nap.
So after my brief stint in the gun world do I understand America’s obsession with guns? Kinda. I absolutely believe that people should have the right to firearms and it is without a doubt FUN to shoot a gun but having said all that I feel that it’s entirely too easy to obtain a gun. I mean we make people get a license to drive a car. Surely a gun is just as dangerous, if not more so, than an automobile. Now I know my Gun Enthusiast friends will say a gun is a right and driving a car is a privilege. I disagree, just as there are some people who should not be able to drive a car (any given day on the connector down town will prove my point on that) there are some who should not be able to go anywhere near a gun. I don’t wanna take away your guns I just don’t want every idiot with a pulse to be able to own one. So until next time, keep your powder dry and your steel clean and the next time you’re at the range that sweaty beady eyed, adrenaline fueled brute in the next lane just might be me!
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