Guns Don't Kill

I am a former US Marine. Viet Nam. Four years active, two inactive.  I went in when I was seventeen.  Just to get away from home. Ha.

The effect of that decision was, of course, profound. I learned a lot in the Marines. One of the things I learned was that the National Rifle Association (NRA) is absolutely correct. Guns don't kill people, people do.

The problem is that the NRA is not interested, for self-serving reasons, in fixing this problem. They and their gun company benefactors make way too much money on uncontrolled access.

In the Marines we also learned one inescapable truth: Firearms were not developed for sport. They are developed for killing. Period. If guns were mainly for sport the gun industry would be out of business.

Thus, a Marine is taught, from day one, to respect a firearm for its intended use. You need to be fully aware that it is meant to kill - and whom or what it kills is up to the user. The weapon is equally deadly to the user, their family, bystanders or an enemy. The weapon does not care.

Training and knowledge are the Marine's tools. You train until correct decisions are instinctive. You learn respect for the weapon; how to maintain it; how to take it apart (yes, blindfolded) and reassemble. Each Marine spends countless hours of repetition in field training, the target range and even the classroom.

The weapon becomes almost a biological part of you. Whether running obstacle courses or sitting in a foxhole, it’s in hand at all times. It's an extension of your body. Drop it, or even set it down for a minute and you will have a DI or platoon sergeant up your ass in a heartbeat.

You are required to train and re-qualify every year, even when you are not in immediate danger of going into combat. The training never ceases.

However, when a Marine is stateside - not in a war zone or on the training range - their weapons are kept - not in their barracks - but in an armory. No Marine carries a weapon, nor has immediate access to a weapon, while on a U.S. military base outside a war zone.  Only those whose job it is to carry a weapon (such as MPs) have immediate access.

Now, you would think that men and women that were trained firearms experts would be able to exercise their second amendment rights. Nope. Not even the best are allowed to carry any firearm on a US Base. Period. Marine generals are smart enough to know an angry Marine is dangerous enough without a weapon. 

This brings me back to the NRA and the ongoing issue with school shootings in particular, and gun violence in general, in America.

It is simply unconscionable to me how we will not allow anyone to drive a vehicle on public roads without extensive training and testing, but any fool can have a gun - whether or not they have a clue what it's for or how it's used.

Unlike a driver’s license, where each of my children had several months of 'Drivers Ed' and several written tests, gun ownership is uncontrolled. My kids spent countless hours with family members learning to drive (and ruining at least one standard clutch). Finally, they took a written test, a driving test (maybe more than one) and got their driver’s license. A license they have to renew every few years.

That means they can now hop in dad's car; drive to the gun show and buy a shinny AR-15 (ammo included) with which to impress their friends when they get drunk next Saturday night.

The fact that the NRA has no problem with the rigor needed to get a driver's license, but they have all sorts of problems with licensing gun owners, is proof positive they are right. Guns don't kill people. The NRA kills people.

As weapons get more sophisticated and dangerous, extensive training and education (and reasonable limits on capacity and capability) are the only thing that will keep the 2nd amendment in place. The longer the NRA ignores its duty to allow regulation, training, testing and licensing of gun ownership - the more certain the 2nd amendment will, one day, be repealed.

JWB

Update Jan 2020: The Marine Corps announced that all who posses a Law Enforcement (LE) rating may carry concealed handguns (not assault weapons) on Marine Corps bases. https://www.marines.mil/News/Messages/Messages-Display/Article/2048873/concealed-carry-of-privately-owned-firearms-for-us-marine-corps-law-enforcement/