Parts I & II dealt with the legal issues of being a gun nut "behind enemy lines" - owning, carrying, and purchasing firearms in a state that is decidedly not 2A-friendly. Specifically, the topics of "May Issue" permitting, the ban on certain firearms for purely cosmetic reasons, and how certain firearms cannot be sold due to bogus "Consumer Regulations" restrictions have been covered in these earlier parts.
Part III will certainly be more subjective - the everyday life of the MA gunnie.
To start with, a little math. MA has some 6.4 million residents, give or take a couple. According to GOAL, there are some 240K licensed gun owners in MA - that's less than 4 percent of the population. Now, to those unfamiliar with MA gun permitting, you might think that's a little on the low side - most states have around 6-8% of their population with gun permits.
Except that in MA, you need a permit to even own a firearm, not just carry one.
What this means is that less than four percent of the citizens of MA own firearms (legally). You're more likely to run into someone who voted for Ralph Nader for President than a gun owner in Massachusetts. You're more likely to be talk to someone in MA who is unemployed than who owns a gun. Heck, you stand a better chance of finding someone in MA who thinks that Elvis is still alive than a licensed gun owner.
There just ain't too many of us...
What there is a lot of, unfortunately, is violent crime, a good chunk of which is committed with a firearm. Most of this is typical big city/drug war/gang-type stuff, pretty common to large urban centers and such; however, what it means, sadly, is that people in MA only have the nightly news and the drive-by shootings to associate with gun ownership. It's hammered home pretty frequently: Guns=criminal. Guns are bad. It's the old logical fallacy: People do bad things with guns, therefore guns are bad.
Hell, the deodand of the gun-buyback is proof-positive that we think the damn things are possessed...
In a nutshell, people only know what they "know" about guns by watching the nightly news (drive-by gang shootings) or from Hollywood. It's extremely rare for the average person in MA to hear a positive story about a firearm - the papers aren't exactly filled with defensive gun use stories, and even in the ultra-rare case where there *is* a defensive gun use, 99 times out of 100 the miscreant shot in self-defense will be referred to as a "shooting victim"...
It's not the kind of place you exactly want to brag about your Bushmaster carbine, that's for sure.
What does this mean for the average MA gun owner? It means we are, by and large, underground. We don't advertise the fact that we own guns - it's a good way to lose business, friends, or even jobs. We are reluctant to admit to our co-workers that we go to the range, or compete in a match, or go to a gun show. We instruct our children not to talk about guns at school, because when the other kids talk - as kids will - their parents will suddenly remember "other plans" when your child wants their child to come to their birthday party...
It's not right, don't get me wrong; it's just how it is...
I know guys who are afraid to put NRA or GOAL stickers on their vehicles because they don't want their co-workers to know they own guns. I've heard of people using "code words" to talk about going shooting ("Daddy's going to a meeting"). If, for some unknown reason a gunowner in MA is "outed", they're most likely to claim the Fudd defense ("Oh, I just have a deer rifle" or "Oh, I only have a couple of guns, and they're family heirlooms. I would never shoot one!"). Talking about firearms in a positive, supportive way is just not something that happens with any sort of frequency in states like MA.
In Part IV I'll discuss the happy exceptions to the above rule - the tightness of the 2A community in anti-gun states...
For now, that is all.
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8 comments:
That is so sad. A little to your north, I talk to almost anyone about guns; at work, at class, with general friends. Even those that don'e own guns don't seem to think it's a big deal.
Are there people that I don't talk about guns, or the range to? Absolutely, but the majority of people that I know don't have any qualms at all.
I live in MA, and when I became a gun owner a little over a year ago, I made a choice. I decided I'm not hiding that I own and shoot guns. I hang perforated targets up in my office at work. I've had bullets shipped to my office to avoid a residential delivery surcharge. I've worn IDPA and Appleseed shirts to the office and to gatherings of my friends.
I'm not doing anything wrong, and I'm not going to hide it. Seeing a positive image of gun owners is the key to changing things. Creating that cognitive dissonance between 'guns are bad mmkay' and 'he's a nice guy, and he owns guns' is how people learn.
I grew up in Champaign-Urbana in Illinois and it was the same way there. It's probably worse now. Nothing could persuade me to return to the Land of Obama.
My daughter's ski instructor has an email address which clearly denotes he's a shooter. I didn't ask him about it within earshot of the other parents. Nope, didn't want to scare the sheep. Rather I pulled him aside and asked on the QT. The ski instructor also informed me that based on his email address, I was only the second person to ask about his hobby. The fellow still shoots, just not in competitions anymore. This happened in central MA, where some folks are more tolerant of all things 2A.
I am enjoying these posts a lot. Many of us in "free" states where guns are in nearly every home don't really have a concept of what it could be like. We worry but are our concerns realistic? Thanks a bunch.
I live in a free state, relatively speaking.
However, I also live close to a metropolis that is routinely in the top 5 cities in the U.S. for violence and murder.
There are many hunters in the state, but there are also many people in the city for whom any kind of pistol is an evil device.
I treat CCW like you treat gun ownership in MA, for that reason.
Yow...I thought I had it bad out here in The People's Republik of Kalifornia!
Oh, and "Rich in Ohio"...I grew up in Northern Illinois...*nothing* could make me move back there. Seems the corruption that Chicago spews out has finally permeated the entire state!
Zeeke, I envy you. I used to work at companies where no one said anything about my hanging targets up on the wall... Well, aside from the occasional "WTF were you SHOOTING?" when they saw the target with the .45 semi-wadcutter holes.
However, in my current position, I had an Appleseed "Redcoat" target on my cubicle wall, along with a turkey target from my Lodge's turkey shoot. I also had a calendar with some very tastefully done shots of milsurp rifles, and a NERF Missile launcher above my monitor.
My boss called me into a conference room one day and told me that they all had to be taken down. "Someone" had complained to HR - they were afraid of the evil pieces of paper and the deadly NERF missile launcher. I would have fought it but I am a contracter, not an employee - it would be all to easy for them to say "OK, we no longer need HIS services".
However, there now is an NRA sticker on my cubicle wall and I usually wear my NRA hat in, as well. So far, no one has reported me. *rolleyes*
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