2007.06.29 Cowardice
Today was an odd day.
Today I went to a firing range with my friend, Ken, and his little sister. The only firearms I've used have been small-calibre bolt-action rifles, mostly in my teens. So going to a gun range that focuses primarily on handguns was quite different. Ken and his little sister both borrowed semi-automatic pistols, a Steyr and a Glock, both 9mm, and I signed out a revolver - a Remington, I think.
I was shown how to hold it, and given two sets of ammunition. The .38 was suggested to try first. Then, when I got comfortable, to try the 357 Magnums. The implications of the instructions were percolating in my mind as I was issued eye and hearing protection, and we headed out to our assigned shooting lanes.
This would be a good point to mention that I'm strongly against private citizens owning handguns and being able to carry them in public. It's partially a philosophical stance based on logic, but mostly it's just fear. I'm a bit terrified of handguns; they have only one real purpose. To help humans kill other humans. Every other purpose that they can be applied to is better served by other kinds of firearms, but the concealability of a handgun only matters if you're killing humans.
So, with that in mind, imagine me there getting ready: setting up my quaint human-shaped paper target and being quite careful about the handling of the pistol. When I heard the first shot of another pistol being fired on the range, quite unexpectedly, my nervous yellow-alert heartrate immediately jumped up to a red-alert drumming. Squeezing my first shot into the target was similarly frightening, even though it was fully expected. The BANG, the flash, and the jerk of the gun in my hand was startling immediately, and the realization of what it could do made the fear of it linger.
Switching over to the diminutive Glock, and finding just how quickly it could fire was less startling than the revolver, but much more impressive in what it could mean in a firefight. One of the things you see in movies, besides the really unlikely marksmanship of everybody, is guys with revolvers flipping open the gun and letting the empty casings slide out so that they can reload. Turns out that the brass cartridges expand when they're fired, and generally needed to be picked out individually. It made me wish I hadn't cut my nails so short, and especially glad that I wasn't cowering behind a boulder hoping that I didn't get enfiladed before I could reload.
Going back to the revolver, I loaded it up with the 357 Magnums to give those a try. I set myself up as before, with a solid diagonal stance, proper grip, and relaxed as I anticipated the shot. BOOM! The gun kicked in my hands and sent me swaying slightly backwards, my shot landing some 20cm above where I had aimed. Brown alert. I've been in car accidents that were less frightening. And each blast was just as terrifying as the first. I could hear echoes of my heartbeat in my earmuffs.
As it turns out, being really quite frightened of handguns might actually help in their use. My aim was considerably better than I remember it being when I was a teenager in Air Cadets using much-less-scary World-War-I era Lee-Enfield rifles.
As it happens, I read that today was the anniversary of the day in 1922 that France granted 1 km² at Vimy Ridge to be a Canadian territory, as an expression of gratitude to the Canadian people. 66,000 Canadians died in that war, and about 200,000 soldiers of all sides died across just 16 kilometers of ridge at Vimy.
The memorial looks just heart-wrenching - beautiful and poignant. Strange patriotic tears well up when I read parts of the description like:
Visitors approaching the front of the monument will see one of its central figures: a woman, hooded and cloaked, facing eastward toward the new day. Her eyes are downcast and her chin rests on her hand. Below her is a tomb, draped in laurel branches and bearing a helmet. This grieving figure represents Canada — a young nation mourning her fallen sons.
I wonder if perhaps part of the mystique of WWI is that this was the beginning of the realization about how effectively humans can employ technology to kill each other, and just how frightening that can be.
This evening, S and I started watching the movie Gandhi, which starts off around the beginning of the First World War. It makes a stunning contrast to the rest of the day for me. It's an important one that I might have overlooked. Because watching the story of Gandhi's efforts and life demonstrated more than just the value of non-violence in our world, but also the immense bravery it must require to be non-violent in the face of violence. It's pretty easy to see how physical power can be compared to physical power, and easy to overlook the guts it must take to pit philosophical resolve against barbarism.
I'm pretty sure I couldn't be that brave. And I'm ashamed to say it, because I can see how it's cowardice like mine that keeps the world bathed in blood.