A Message to New Gun Owners

Here in Charlottesville (I live in Albemarle County but work in Charlottesville) we have had a spate of gang assaults over the last few months against random strangers in the downtown area. One or two people alone are violently attacked by a gang of teenagers for no apparent motive save for the gang's desire to hurt someone.

I was over at the local gun shop on Saturday afternoon to get a new hunting license (dove and goose season starts September 1st!) and ran into some friends there as I often do. We got to talking and based on anecdotes we'd each heard plus the comments of some other regulars who'd seen more 'newbies' in the store there was a consensus that sales of compact, self-defense-oriented handguns is up lately in the Charlottesville area.

If there are people new to firearms who are buying handguns out of fear then I hope that some of them are reading right now and will take some of the advice I am about to offer.

First let me tell you the worst case scenario for a legal, honest gun purchase.

A man is afraid of being attacked on the street or having his home invaded and his family threatened. So he drives to the gun store and purchases a handgun and a box of cartridges. He drives back to his suburban home, sits in his bedroom and takes the brand new pistol out of the box. There is a manual that comes with the pistol but he does not read it. 'You put the bullets in here and then you pull the trigger, how complicated can it be?'

The pistol came with a trigger lock, a manual safety plus an integral device within the weapon for disabling it with a key. But our new gun owner has no idea how to use any of these devices because he did not read the manual. He throws the trigger lock in a drawer and forgets about it since he figures that the pistol will be no good in an emergency if it is locked. He clicks a magazine into the bottom of the grip and practices holding it, drawing a bead on his own reflection in the mirror. Never mind that his family is watching television in the living room on the other side of that wall. He has never even heard of the basic rules of gun safety that would have told him not to do this.

The new gun owner does not actually fire the weapon because he lives in a suburban neighborhood and has no place to shoot. Hey, why bother practicing? You point the thing at somebody and you pull the trigger. Just like in the movies, right?

A little afraid of the weapon, he knows nothing about it and has nothing to teach. He puts it in the drawer of his nightstand next to the bed. Thinking that curiosity will lead to an accident, he decides not to tell his children that the pistol even exists.

A month later, his 5 year old son is playing hide and seek with a friend while a neighbor is babysitting. The boy hides under his parents bed. After the friend finds him, he opens the drawer out of curiosity. A toy gun! Like the one he got for his birthday, only heavier. He points it at his friend out of habit and pulls the trigger.

This is how firearms accidents involving children usually happen. They happen because their parents are idiots who did not make the slightest effort to learn about firearm safety or to teach their children how to behave around something that even might be a firearm.

I am an NRA member, a holder of a concealed weapon permit, a hunting license and a type 3 Federal Firearms License. Obviously I am in no way anti-gun. However, if you are not prepared to make a serious effort to learn how to safely use a firearm and to ensure that the basics are understood by everyone living in your home, please do not buy a gun. It's not going to do you any good. Under the circumstances I have outlined, the pistol is far more likely to hurt someone in your family than it is to repel an attacker.

Hitting a human-sized target in a vital spot at even a few yards distance with a handgun is much harder than you think. Especially in a stressful situation and in low light. It takes a lot of practice. If you aren't going to put the time in at the range then the odds are that you would be wasting your money by buying a handgun.

For home defense, a shotgun is often the better choice. Handguns are designed to be very easily portable weapons that can be carried hands-free in a holster. Buying one for home protection is sort of like buying a video iPod to hang on your wall and use as a television. It just doesn't make much sense. A shotgun gives you more power and is much easier to hit the attacker with. Just make sure that you choose a model that has a short enough overall length to allow you to easily swing it around in the narrowest hallway of your home. You can also purchase shotgun shells with loads that are unlikely to fully penetrate the walls of your home and kill an innocent bystander.

As for defending yourself while out and about, you will need to get a concealed weapon permit. In theory, you can practice 'open carry' in Virginia without having any type of permit. But trust me when I say that you will feel very uncomfortable doing this in most situations. In order to get the concealed weapon permit you will have to take an approved class on handgun safety and demonstrate your knowledge both in a written test and on a firing range. It is a good idea to take such a class even if you do not want the permit.

The numerous safety devices included with most modern firearms are important to understand and to use when appropriate but they are no substitute for education. Assume that every child in your home will eventually have the opportunity to get his or her hands on the weapon at some point in the course of their life. Teach them what to do when this happens.

My oldest child is 3 and a half years old and she has known since before she could talk that she is not allowed to handle a firearm. However, I do encourage her to accompany me when I am shooting targets out back with a .22 rifle. Each time we talk about the things that we are going to do to keep both of us safe while I am doing this. She has a toy wooden rifle that I have made for her to hold while we do this. She knows that we must never point a gun at any person or in any direction where we cannot see where the bullet would stop. She knows that we always assume that every gun is loaded, even when we can see that it is not. If she points the wooden toy rifle at a dog or a human then I take it away from her to teach her a lesson. The toy rifle has a barrel that she can put a cleaning rod inside of but it does not have a trigger because I don't want her to get in the habit of pulling one. When she gets a few years older we'll see about a toy with a pretend trigger.

My wife and I do not allow remotely realistic toy guns in the house and quietly get rid of them when someone gives her a squirt gun as a gift. We do not want her to acquire the sloppy safety habits that could result from playing with toy guns.

Being a kill-joy is worth it for the peace of mind that we have regarding our daughter's safety around firearms. We'll make up for the lack of squirt guns by getting her a real rifle when she is much older and demonstrates the necessary maturity.

Buying a firearm is not like buying a new cell phone or some other technological toy. It is a commitment and a huge responsibility. You wouldn't drive a car without knowing how to use the brakes or buckle the seatbelt. Please apply the same logic to your guns.

To find a gun safety course near you, check out what courses the NRA has to offer. Whether or not you agree with their political work, the NRA literally invented firearm safety education and they are the organization that spreads the gospel of firearm safety to whomever they can.