{"id":3673,"date":"2018-02-27T08:30:19","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T16:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=3673"},"modified":"2020-06-24T23:28:31","modified_gmt":"2020-06-25T06:28:31","slug":"oregon-guns-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/oregon-guns-life\/","title":{"rendered":"On Oregon Guns in My Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in 2012, in the aftermath of the Newton school shooting, I wrote a post for my Powell’s On Oregon<\/i> blog called \u201cOn Guns in My Oregon Life.\u201d I had been writing the blog (unpaid of course) for almost two years and it had become popular and allowed me access to tens of thousands of readers that I would have otherwise never reached. In the blog, I ranged far and wide on all things Oregon. When the Newtown shooting occurred I felt compelled to write about guns in my Oregon life. A new Powell’s blog editor thought it wasn’t appropriate and refused to run it. I parted ways with the Powell’s blog platform as a result. Think about that: one of the most liberal bastions in the PNW, the Powell’s book empire, wouldn’t run an anti-gun satire because they were afraid of the sales and\/or rhetorical repercussions from the gun fanatic community. Would they run this piece now after hundreds of fatal school shootings since then, including three in Oregon? Guns are a menacing presence of every Oregon’s teacher’s life, whether they own one or not. It was always in the back of my mind that a school shooting would erupt where I taught. I was ready and of course not ready. I like the direction of the new protests, student led. Adults had their turn. Today’s students have the ability to apply a unique public pressure to the NRA types and the politicians from both parties who take their bribes. I say they go for it and change American history. <\/span><\/p>\n

Below is the \u201cOn Guns in My Oregon Life\u201d post from 2012. I changed very little of it, just a few edits to the NRA fan fiction blast. <\/span><\/p>\n

On Guns in My Oregon Life<\/span><\/p>\n

As an educator, last December\u2019s Newtown Massacre particularly shattered me. Could something like this occur at Newport High School on the Oregon Coast, where I teach English and journalism? I would say \u201cyes\u201d if sane people and their elected lawmakers continue their present course, which, as you clearly saw in the months after the shooting, means doing absolutely nothing except caving into the fanaticism and insanity of a minority of fellow Americans. <\/span><\/p>\n

If the same cowardly ethos had prevailed 50 years ago, segregation would still be the law in the old Confederacy. <\/span><\/p>\n

Let me be clear: When I say \u201cminority,\u201d I don\u2019t mean the millions of Americans who own firearms for a variety of valid reasons. I mean the Americans who have no cultural or political or sexual identity without firearms. This is a very small group of paranoids but they have proved intimidating, especially to the people who don\u2019t feel the need to integrate firearms into their daily lives or fetishize them nothing short of sex toys. This small group also has a lobby called the NRA, which the media portrays as invincible. They used to say the same thing about the tobacco industry and the Klan. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the months after the Newtown Massacre, I\u2019ve had some random thoughts on guns that I\u2019d like to share: Did you know that the federal government regulates the manufacture and sale of toy guns more closely than real ones? <\/span><\/p>\n

As a child, I played with guns all the time. In fact, I owned an arsenal: M-1, M-16, Winchester, Thompson machine gun, Enfield rifle, musket, Luger pistol, Colt revolver and Colt .45 automatic. They were all toys but certainly didn\u2019t turn me into someone who later fetishized guns. My father, a decorated combat Marine from the Korean War, never owned a gun after his service in the military, where he killed the enemy at point blank range. He always told me that, \u201cthe men who play macho with guns during peace have never had to kill anyone face to face.\u201d The idea that school officials trained how to use a firearm could avert a Newtown-type attack at Newport High School is a dangerous delusion, but gun manufactures know it turns large profits, and that\u2019s really what it\u2019s all about. What does it say about a country where a person has to register to vote, marry or drive a vehicle but not to own an assault weapon?I have fired a gun once in my life, a shotgun at a glass target in a Central Oregon desert. I missed. It was a memorably boring and empty experience. According to an article in the Jan. 28 issue of <\/span>Time Magazine<\/i><\/span>, Americans own an estimated 310 million firearms and over 30,000 people died from firearm-related causes with suicides nearly doubling the amount of homicides. In 2010, nearly nine million new firearms went on sale in the United States. Firearms are a $11.7 billion industry.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes when I try to unravel confusing and contentious issues in my country, I turn to writing fiction. The other day, on a lark, I wrote the following story, \u201cThe Campaign.\u201d When I finished, I think I created a new literary sub-genre, NRA Fan Fiction, and a possible slogan recommending it to aspiring novelists: \u201cPeople Don\u2019t Write Fiction, Computers Write Fiction.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

The Campaign<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Three members of the NRA\u2019s Executive Board emptied one high-capacity magazine after another with their assault weapons. It was a beautiful afternoon in a city park somewhere in Middle America and little red explosions of creatures formerly known as birds and squirrels pleased the men. Validating the Second Amendment was a crucial part of safeguarding a quasi-democracy, and what better way to spend your leisure time when the country was going to hell? Certainly, it was a more enjoyable pastime than actually doing something to improve communities afflicted with a million social woes, although a surfeit of guns was not among them. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a> Christmas approached and the NRA stewed. A new President in league with Satan had recently decreed a national fitness program to combat the scourge of teenage obesity. The campaign\u2019s slogan was \u201cBike For Fun, Fitness and Life\u201d and the liberal media had enthusiastically taken up the promotional cause when they weren\u2019t reporting on the hundreds of firearms-related deaths occurring daily across the nation. Sales of bicycles were booming everywhere in both the Blue and Red states, and young boys in particular were excited about bicycling and throwing away their video games by the millions. A bicycling revolution clearly Democratic Party in nature was undoubtedly underway and it would culminate in lucrative holiday sales for bicycling retailers. This meant fewer consumers buying firearms for Christmas, which was something firearms manufacturers simply could not brook. They ordered the NRA to do something about it and fast. That\u2019s what they paid for. <\/span><\/p>\n

The NRA\u2019s Madmen, the ad geniuses who invented the phrase \u201cGuns Don\u2019t Kill People, People Kill People\u201d and sold this sizzle to the moronic mass that was the electorate, knew they had a fight on their hands. Nothing less than record profits, unlimited trips to find \u201cgirlfriends\u201d in Thailand, and more mass shootings and their concomitant increase in firearms sales were at stake. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Madmen were Scotch-seasoned, nicotine-flavored professionals who in half a day whipped up a multi-pronged campaign featuring the innovative use of social media, bazooka giveaways, testimony from assailants, puppet shows of the Founding Fathers, old-fashioned vigilantism, assassinations of gun control advocates, kindergarten pistol clubs, aggressive marketing pitches involving supermodels juxtaposed with Jihadists, and slogans galore. Slogans like \u201cBikes are for Fairies, Guns are for Titans,\u201d \u201cSanta Carries a Glock; He Don\u2019t Need No Bike,\u201d \u201cSingle Mothers for More Guns in Schools,\u201d \u201cGuns are Sexier than Spokes,\u201d \u201cIf Jesus Owned an AR-15, He Would Have Never Been Crucified,\u201d \u201cShoot More, Bike Less\u201d and \u201cMake Guns, Not War.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The NRA rolled out their juggernaut on Black Friday and hired a deranged bike messenger to shoot 39 people at a Des Moines mall to garner even more publicity. It worked. The Madmen drank and laughed and booked an immediate charter flight to Thailand. Two months later, a couple of Senators introduced a bill to ban the use of bicycles for any recreational purpose. The sole exception was hunting, although the proposed law stipulated that only wolves could be shot. The press noticed that unicycles weren\u2019t covered by the legislation and the NRA moved quickly to amend the bill. <\/span><\/p>\n

(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.) <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n\n

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Back in 2012, in the aftermath of the Newton school shooting, I wrote a post for my Powell’s On Oregon blog called \u201cOn Guns in My Oregon Life.\u201d I had been writing the blog (unpaid of course) for almost two years and it had become popular and allowed me access to tens of thousands of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3674,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,74],"tags":[647,648,644,6,643,645,52,649,650,646],"class_list":["post-3673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-coast_history","tag-assault-weapons-ban","tag-gun-control","tag-gun-lobby","tag-matt-love","tag-nra","tag-nra-fan-fiction","tag-oregon","tag-oregon-guns","tag-oregon-school-shootings","tag-school-shootings","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3675,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3673\/revisions\/3675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}