I’m not a professional trumpet player. I am an enthusiastic hobbyist. That is true of more than 95% of musicians. Even if you do gigs and get paid for them, unless you rely on it for sustenance income, then like me, you’re not a professional. However, I do have professional equipment.
Likewise, more than 95% of firearms owners are not professionals. They are enthusiastic hobbyists. They are neither soldiers nor instructors. They are refreshed by the escape they find at the shooting range and are personally bettered by the process of improving themselves in a measureable skill. They enjoy it. And they too are often equipped with professional gear.
Were it the case that thousands of people were killed by professional-quality trumpets every year, and if there were a government directive that required me to trade in my XO Roger Ingram trumpet for a Yamaha YTR-4335, I would, without drama or protest, comply. Or if in order to keep it, I would be required to take a series of lessons at my own expense with a professional trumpet player, I would also comply. Likewise if I needed to submit a detailed application that included a background check, I would comply.
However, the suggestion that hobbyist owners of military-grade weaponry make a similar adjustment, trading their AR-15 for a rifle with a lower-capacity magazine and stopping power that falls short of charging elephant herds, undergoing intensive training in order to qualify for purchase, or enduring waiting periods and background checks, any suggestion of reform whatsoever is met with howls of indignation invoking tyrannical government run amok, essential elements of the Constitution defiled, and even claims of blaspheming the intentions of the divine.
Enthusiasts claim their weapons caches are a bulwark against a government they fear may kick down their doors and hustle them off to labor camps. It’s not a viable argument. First, there isn’t enough agreement in any administration for such pogroms to be initiated. I’m not afraid of it under Trump and people who worried about it through eight years of Obama were proven wrong. And second, were that to occur, an AR-15 is no match for a tank or a remotely piloted drone loaded with Hellfire missiles.
Shooting powerful weapons is fun. Playing a $2500 trumpet is fun. There is nothing like dropping an AK-47 with a fifteen-round magazine to your hip and dumping the full clip into a car seat, pile of watermelons, row of frozen bowling pins or whatever the target might be. There is nothing like getting a lower lungful of air and ripping a monster jazz lick at triple forte on a great trumpet. I understand both thrills, and I could live without either if it proved beneficial to society. I believe that many of the arguments being fashioned to support the continued legality of military-style weapons are being made disingenuously.
The argument of, “I enjoy it,” doesn’t carry with it the gravitas of the other ones, so you don’t hear it. But it’s true. It’s the beginning and the end of the real motivation, and the handwringing over essential freedoms violated and tyrannical governments held at bay are either misguided or mendacious. Powerful guns are fun. But that’s not a good enough argument given the state of affairs in America right now, so all of this false melodrama get presented instead. And it's a great big lie.
It’s time to begin the discussion. It's time for sensible reform, and it's time to talk to rather than at one another. Gun restriction advocates have to stop seeing any gun owner as an instant enemy, and responsible gun owners have to understand that their best strategy is to participate in a reform process that will preserve their most essential freedoms while providing sensible controls over licensure and equipment.
It’s time to begin the discussion. It's time for sensible reform, and it's time to talk to rather than at one another. Gun restriction advocates have to stop seeing any gun owner as an instant enemy, and responsible gun owners have to understand that their best strategy is to participate in a reform process that will preserve their most essential freedoms while providing sensible controls over licensure and equipment.
