Guns: from an Alaskan Surgeon, and Dad

Growing up in Alaska everyone had guns. No one was worried that the “government” would take them away. We owned guns because they were a part of our life, not something we felt put on the same status as a precious car, but something utilitarian, like a chef’s knife .

There were four types of people who open carried hand guns, – as I was told by the wise people of the day: police, military, hikers, and a$$holes. If you had a hand gun, you used it when you needed it, hiking or target practice.  You respected it too much to be boastful about it. You were taught the value of any gun as a device to keep your family fed and that it would kill you if you were not careful, so we were taught to be careful. Hand guns were not for hunting – they were to fire in the air if you got lost in the woods, or to make the loud noise to warn off the abundant bears. If you shot a bear with a handgun you would find yourself inside their digestive system. But there were always those.

In those days when someone walked around with a hand gun strapped on their side people just rolled their eyes. Unless they were on their way to the woods, or bush. Those who kept them strapped to their side in the city, well, they would have a certain smug strut.

Guns were respected. You shot your game with a bolt action if you were good, or a repeater if you were not. No one thought of concealing a handgun – because we would think you would be a criminal.

My dad kept a couple of rifles in the hall closet – kind of dumb in retrospect; probably should have been kept in a gun safe.

The bad side of gun access: My best friend blew his brains out at age 14 with his dad’s shotgun. My brother was shot in the leg by a stupid neighbor who didn’t point his gun away and it discharged. Every year a hunter or two was killed or maimed from another hunter.

But we lived on a small island. You could only get in by plane (above) or boat. We maybe had 5000 people if you counted everyone from where the road went – 8 miles south and 12 miles north of town. As you can see, we were in the middle of the Tongass National Forest – lots of game to shoot, bears who wanted to eat your game.

In all the years I grew up in Ketchikan there was not one murder, but among hunters there were always a few errant shots.

The few local mentally ill  were never sold guns. If they tried to buy one, the shop owner would call the doctor.  Then the doctor would stop by and chat with them for a while. Worried more about suicide than anything else.

Teachers didn’t carry guns – even if bears would come wandering too close to our school or playground- the teacher or principle would  call the Fish and Game.

Kids were messed up then as they are now- maybe more so, as the drugs then were a bit more messy. Growing up in the 60’s was an age where kids had a lot of drugs, the things parents never suspected, and booze. But you never would think of going to “a party” with a gun.

Guns were respected – in those days the NRA was a pure safety and education organization. I took their gun safety and shooting classes at the local armory. The NRA changed with a coup in late 1970’s – and became a political organization. It now receives money from gun makers and uses the narrative that most people use – about how a society is better with more guns.

Well, it isn’t my small town anymore. Guns are not something that is a utility, and the people who own them have changed- it is a bunch of people who claim they are second amendment lovers and have guns but none of them seem to know the slightest thing about how to respect guns or people.

So yes, I endorse laws to get rid of all the AR-15, no trouble outlawing ammunition magazines – and no trouble getting rid of the NRA which has brainwashed a generation with their nonsense about the second amendment.

Those who think we need more guns to protect people are just loony – because it has never worked. We have increased guns – mostly to people who shouldn’t have them – and decreased safety. The myth of “a good person with a gun” is nonsense, although anytime it happens the NRA boasts about it. What about the policeman who was first in to the Thousand Oaks shooter – experienced with guns, and went in and was killed.

I never thought marksmanship was difficult, and I won a fair number of trophies. But I don’t tell my son that. I don’t glorify guns, I tell him I cannot hit the broad side of a barn.

So stop preaching about what you don’t know about, don’t really respect and are shills for an organization that was once proud but has been taken over by people who just want to make more money.  The NRA is no longer an organization of members who teach gun safety and respect. Maybe they still have those classes. The NRA gets the majority of its money from the makers of human-killing machines. The NRA doesn’t serve its members, it serves its masters – those who pay its bills. The makers of those guns. You might have an AR-15 and if you do that doesn’t make you a man.

As a trauma surgeon I saw the change when the NRA went from being an organization of its members to being an organization bought and paid for by gun manufacturers. We saw it in the trauma room – gunshot victims were now dead on arrival.

If an AR-15 patient was shot in the chest or the abdomen they were dead on arrival. The AR-15 will pulverize a liver while a 9 mm will cause a big hole, but we had a chance to save them. You cannot rapid fire a hunting rifle, but if you are good, you wouldn’t need to. An AR-15 has minimal recoil and you can shoot 30 times without thinking about it. The AR-15 is a pure, human killing machine. It has no place in anyone’s closet unless it is the locked closet of the military.

I want him to be safe

I’m a physician and a dad – and I fear for my son more here than where I grew up. Don’t tell me kids back then had more respect for god and country, because they didn’t. Don’t tell me mental health was better then – because we didn’t have very good meds. Don’t tell me it is family values and spankings that kept kids in line. We know now that teaching kids violence through spanking teaches them that violence is a means of communication.  Face it, some people are wired oddly(mentally ill)  and you all should be ashamed for thinking they have a right to a gun and the answer is giving a teacher a gun. Families then might not have divorced as much – the wives might have put up with black eyes, the kids hearing nightly screaming arguments. Spanking just allowed another generation to think that violence against a kid was a good thing.

This dad is tired of this nonsense. And yes, I have a son, and whenever I hear about the latest shooting I think we need to move to a country where the gun is respected. Not here- the gun isn’t respected here. And stop with your second amendment argument – if you want to carry a bolt action, fine- but lets be clear, no founding father would have wanted the level of violence and suicide we have today because of easy access to these weapons.