Hank, a nice man who owns a gun or two

When I first came up with this little project of interviewing interesting friends, the first name on the list, writ large in all caps, was HANK.

Hank is the step-father of one of my most important friends, Abe. He's smart, a little creepy and a genuinely sweet guy. He once emailed my wife to ask if she'd like to collaborate on poems about Hannibal Lechter. He was only joking a little, I think.

A few years ago, Hank and I spent the afternoon of Abe's wedding talking under a tree, because it was fucking hot. We talked a bit about guns, along with the nature of love and the weirdness of weddings. Better than than doing the Bunny Hop by a long shot, I'd say. I've kept that conversation in the back of my mind since then, and I thought I'd ask Hank to dredge up that conversation for the blog.

Enjoy.

9 July 2006

Hi Greg,

When you invited me to participate in your web log as an "interesting person", I was immediately interested. After all, I find myself enormously interesting, but here was as a chance to be certified as such by another interesting person. And being certified, maybe even to receive a certificate, who knows?

But I am obsessive about writing, and after the first excitement, the inevitable miasma of conflicting thoughts began to settle upon me. Someone reading the first sentence above, the one that begins �When you invited me�� might have noticed I state that I was interested in being designated interesting. This was an issue from the git go. Being interested in being interesting is such a loser thing. Being interesting without being interested in being interesting is cool.

As everyone who has ever taken a writing class knows, and as some of us have realized naturally since our first, cramped strokes of the alphabet, the author's original question must be, "Who am I writing for?" And since I am one of the latter sort, who can never even make a lousy list, for Christ's sake, without seeing it in 12 point Bookman Old Style, I have to ask this question, as trite as it is, and yet important, too. "Who am I writing for?"

The idea here idea here is that you better damn well know who you are writing for, because you are always writing for someone, and it is better to have it out in the open at the beginning. Who did Kafka write for? Does anyone know? Or any other mostly-published-posthumously author? At the very least there has to a muse. And just because this all seems obvious to us, it must be looked at, don't ya know.

There is always the temptation to write "for posterity", or, less abstractly, for one's children and grandchildren. I love language, so why not leave some of it for those who share my DNA? There is not much else I will have to leave, the Estates Montandon being short on the material side, and long on the intellectual. I take my stance here with Billy Blake, who said, "I am a mental Prince." Not only said it, but lived it. He also pointed out that "The Ancients committed to writing the things they Loved." For Blake, writing was a gift, and I like that notion, of leaving gifts behind, cultural gifts, intellectual gifts, in the form of writing.

By now it is obvious what one of my problems is. Every bit of writing becomes, potentially, a Project. Every phrase in every paragraph on every page is illuminated, as it were, by the Great Dead, or at least the writers I like. Stylistic influences? Hell, it's just not possible to meld together William Blake, Neal Stephenson, Henry Thoreau and many others in a way that won�t make the reader, or myself, wince. But even in these few words, I can detect some faint presences: J.D. Salinger, for one. Dorothy Sayers, for another.

Maybe there is a muse here, or maybe not. As to "who am I writing for?" that always changes too, like a kite in the wind.

Let's stop all this dreadful introspective bullshit and get on with it.

One way to do it, a way I like right now, is as a conversation.

G: Hank, at Abe’s wedding you and I had an interesting conversation about guns. In the past few years, you’ve taken up gun ownership as a hobby. I guess a lot of people have this preconceived idea of gun owners as these reactionary Berserkers, where as you’re a thoughtful, loving guy…right?

H: I don’t like to admit that I might be a loving person. There are too many counter-examples out there in too many minds to make any of those claims. Plus, it is Plus, it is way too limiting. I would rather have people think that I am not a loving person, and that way they can be pleasantly surprised, I hope.

One thing that propelled me into the "gun world", if you want to call it that, that I am very aware of is your typical jew-boy threatened by storm trooper scenario. I can make light of it, I do make light of it, but there is some fear there too. It's that old "4 A.M. and a gang of armed thugs smash their way into my house and drag me off to the camps" mental reverberation that I have had for as long as I can remember. When I took a look at that fantasy, I realized what was most terrifying was the sense of helplessness it gave me. I wanted to be in a position to say, "OK, you might get the best of me and mine, but I am at least gonna hurt you in the process." I can say that archaic fear of the Evil Invaders has softened considerably since my home has become an armed fortress (just kidding about the armed fortress part).

G: Well, I can relate to that, but it's really pretty much an abstract fear, isn't it? I mean in this day and age?

H: Yes, if you mean for most law-abiding citizens in the US or other parts of the post-industrial world. But in many places in the world, involving I would say a majority of the people who are alive today, it is a very real fear, a real possibility in their lives. I remember a few years ago on a Saturday afternoon there was a rumor in the town I live in that there was a gang of kids robbing stores in the malls north of here. A rumor, unsubstantiated by anyone in authority, but many of the shops in town closed because of it. As New Orleans demonstrated, any place may be only one natural disaster away from adventures with armed bad guys. I remember a quote from Orwell that I find speaks to this issue: "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men are prepared to do violence on their behalf." He was talking about wars between nations, but my feeling is now that everyone should be prepared to defend himself or herself.

That whole thing is the dark side of why I learned to shoot, and why I am a happy gun owner today. Of course there were other sides too.

When I turned fifty I made a list of things that I wanted to learn and study. Ball room dancing and French were on that list, but those interests died on the dance floor so to speak. Learning to shoot and learning computers are thriving.

G: Can you say something about how it actually happened in your life?

H: I am, as you note above, a thoughtful person, in that I like to think about things I am doing, learn a bit about them and let my motivation grow or not in the process. Someone gave me a copy of a book called Boston's Gun Bible which I found fascinating and in fact reviewed on Amazon. From there it was just a question of learning. To buy a gun in this country you usually have to have a federally licensed firearms dealer. I met a wonderful guy nearby here who is a real "there is no such thing as a dumb question" guy. A very decent and generous guy, who pointed me in the right direction. And I was lucky enough to find a master of the shooting arts, in fact quite locally at the Chabot Gun Club in Oakland. This man, John Maunder, is a life-long student of fire arms and shooting, and a real old-fashioned gentleman and honorable being. He has also been unbelievably kind to me and generous with his time. I have yet to meet anyone who shoots seriously who fits the stereotype you mentioned. I am constantly made happy by how kind and welcoming these folks are. John never lets any of his students forget that shooting is a potentially lethal pastime, so you have to be calm, cool, collected, humble and all those virtuous things or you are gonna be in deep dog-doo.

I am politically progressive, but I believe strongly that people should learn how to shoot, how to defend themselves. To me, the liberal knee-jerk reaction to guns is every bit as thoughtless as the right�s knee-jerk reaction to gay marriage. Thoughtless and very damaging. It is almost impossible where I live in California to get a permit to carry a concealed gun, but if it were possible, I would do it.

G: How did people you’re close to react to your nascent gun thingie?

H: My wife Thea has had a terrible time with it. She has a visceral reaction to guns that borders on terror. Sadly for her, her husband, her sons Abe and Alex, and her sister Colleen’s husband and son are all gun owners and enthusiastic shooters. I would say Mac (Greg: Hank's son) is probably squeamish on the subject, but he is somewhat at home with his dad’s weird interests.

My colleagues at work have turned out to be either current or former fire arms aficionados. That surprised me, but it no longer surprises me.

G: Meaning?

H: OK, here’s a story. A woman friend of mine who is a kind of archetypal Berkeley liberal invited me to have coffee with her cause she had something she had been thinking about and she wanted to ask me my opinion. Her question was: “What do you think about guns?” When I heard this my heart sank because I immediately thought we would get into one of those heated discussions that people on opposite sides of an issue tend to have. Turned out she had been doing a lot of thinking and reading on her own and had herself decided she needed to learn how to shoot! That really surprised me, but I think it is where people get to if they face the facts.

G: Did you grow up with guns? Did your father or any relatives hunt? When and how and why did your interest pique? What sort of instruction have you had?

H: Until I was nine I lived on top of a mountain in eastern Pennsylvania in a little town with about 12 families. Everybody hunted, except my Swiss dad, who preferred fly fishing! I have since reclaimed my Swiss heritage by learning to shoot, because Switzerland has no other army except for its armed citizens. That whole William Tell thing is not just some cute Disney cartoon to them, but a very serious founding myth.

I have taken a number of classes at different places, and I go to the range for practice. Like anything else, it requires total devotion to get really good at, and my total devotion is directed elsewhere, so I am at peace with that decision and glad that I have some minimal competence with fire arms.

It has been a very energizing and quite emotional experience. The first few years I did quite a lot of writing on the subject. I tried for a blend of humor and wisdom, since I am both funny and wise. Here's a sample:

A Fine Rifle Is the Poor Man's Yacht

These days, owning a rifle is not just about shooting. (Of course, owning a yacht is never just about sailing, either.) Ask any American who owns a rifle how he spends most of his time vis a vis his firearm and he will answer (if he answers truthfully and looks you in the eye and does not flinch),"Shopping."

Pragmatism has often been called the only truly homespun American philosophy. Now Pragmatism goes by a more familiar name. Retail.

Let me say it clearly. Your basic, hard working, patriotic American loves gadgets above everything else. If there is an American Religion, that Religion is Gadgetry. And your basic, hard working, patriotic American rifleman loves gadgets more than anybody.

Now a rifle is not a gadget. A rifle is a tool. But surrounding that rifle is a staggering array of what can only be called gadgets. It's not always easy to know what a gadget is. For example, consider pens. A pen is a tool for writing. But some pens are gadgets, a writing tool with attitude.

Take my friend Launders. Launders owns a pen store. For many people the idea of a store that sells only pens is a stretch. I was one of those people a few years ago, before I became a born-again gadgeteer. One day I asked myself a question. My friend Jim had a birthday coming up. I knew he likes pens. He always used one of those 89 cent roller ball pens. I wondered, "Wouldn't Jim like a really good roller ball pen?" I didn't know it at the time, but when you start thinking about a "really good" anything, you have taken a step on the path of Gadgetry.

I am in the neighborhood, so I stop in at Launders' store.

"What's the very best roller ball pen?" I ask him.

After a pause during which he reassures himself this is not a trick question, he answers, "Why, it's the White Mountain." (This is not the real name of this pen. My lawyer says not to tell you the real name.) You see one of these pens, from time to time, peering out of somebody's pocket. It�s got a little white patch on top, I guess to remind you of a snow covered mountain, or something.

"How much pain?" I ask Launders.

"Well," he says,"you can get a really nice one for around $200. But they have a cheap one that's about $150."

$150 for a pen! I would sooner take a politician to lunch than pay $150 for a pen.

"I'll think about it" I say.

After a few days of careful consideration, I realize that there is probably one fundamental difference between a White Mountain pen for $150 and your basic 89 cent roller ball. When your 89 cent roller ball runs out of ink, you throw it away. You don't do this with your $150 White Mountain. You get a new ink cartridge.

Aha!

So I stop in to see Launders.

"How much are the ink cartridges for your White Mountain pens?" I ask, smug with my new found knowledge.

"$4.50", says Launders, with a straight face.

"Score!" I think to myself. "Now we're getting someplace."

"And do you have other holders that will fit the $4.50 White Mountain cartridges?" I ask, humbly, hoping that Launders might overlook the point.

"Well, yes�" he says. "We've got some for about $20."

No Neanderthal hunter returning home with a mastodon haunch could have been as happy as I am at that moment. The outside of the White Mountain pen doesn't matter! What counts is the ink cartridge. THIS is the secret of its great success, surely. I leave the store with my new pen set, elated at the thought that I now own the functional equivalent of the $150 White Mountain pen for which I have paid $24.45! With careful thought and canny bargaining, I have scored a great victory, saving myself $125.55. I have also put one over on Launders.

At home I try my new pen. It writes OK. Nothing great, I notice.

After four days, it stops writing.

I go back to talk to Launders.

"I bought this White Mountain ink cartridge from you, and it only wrote for four days," I say.

"Yup," he says, "That's what everybody tells me."

When I first started thinking about buying a gun, my wife thought I had gone crazy. She accused me of being a survivalist. She inquired scornfully if I was now listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio. None of these things being true, I had to ask myself, "What pernicious, dark motives did I have for my awakening interest in GUNS?"

I considered all the usual suspects.

Growing up in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania hunting was a way of life for everyone, but not my father. Repudiating his Swiss heritage, he forsook firearms for fly rods. Busy for days during trout season in the icy mountain streams around our home, he returned with the tiniest of fish, never more than three. Most often, he returned with nothing at all.

He was considerably more passionate about his other great sporting adventure -- blueberry picking. He was more successful at this, after a picking spree bringing back gallons of fresh blueberries.

To hear him tell the tale, blueberry picking was much more of an adventure than trout fishing ever could be.

The reason was the bears.

In those Pocono Mountain meadows, bears and blueberries naturally came together every autumn. The blueberry bushes were the size of cottages. More than once, my father, picking his way around the side of a bush, encountered a bear, coming the other way. The bear always ran, and so did my father.

But surely the fact that my father was a fly fisherman and a berry picker when every other adult male in town was a hunter could not have influenced me in the least.

For some reason, when I started to think about buying a rifle, it put me in a certain kind of mood. It was the kind of mood you get into that leads to buying binoculars.

I know this is sounding very irrational. But for some reason, when I started to think I was at last going to buy a rifle, I just had to buy some binoculars first. And not just some 89 cent binoculars either. The binoculars that seized me by the throat were German, and they looked it. They were large. They were armored. Using them in even modest light you could count the hairs on the back of a fly at 300 meters. And what they cost would easily serve as a down payment on a fair-size yacht. They were the binoculars that God would use, if He was giving His Omnivision a rest.

But, I was counting on my Secret Weapon. My SW was eBay, the Internet auction site. I had stumbled upon eBay in my early days of Gadgeteering. If Gadgetry is my religion, eBay is my Sacred Source. The power in eBay had embraced me and given me the Ten Commandments of Acquiring.

I. Thou shalt pay no more than 50% of the retail price.

II. Thou shalt only bid on what thou hast researched.

III. Thou shalt buy from a seller with 98% or greater positive ratings.

IV. Thou shalt wait humbly and snipe thy winning bid in the last flutter of the angel�s wing.

V. Thou shalt time thy transactions by the Atomic Clock.

VI. Thou shalt wait for only slightly less than eternity if that is what eBay commands to give thee the product thou most desireth.

VII. Thou shalt only pay by credit card.

VIII. Thou shalt pay really really fast and so be ordained a Great Ebayer.

IX. Thou shalt praise the seller who is just, but the unjust seller thou shalt smite with negativity.

X. Thou shalt hold no other site before eBay, unless thou art buying firearms.

The Sacred Buying Power which eBay had bestowed upon me had never failed me. My collection of plastic flat ware, believed to be the largest in California - eBay. My wife's dog's pajamas - eBay. The ten gallon drum of sun screen which will keep my pallid carcass from frying to a crisp in perpetuity - eBay. My confidence knew no bounds! Anything was possible!

The only thing was, everybody seemed to want those damn German binoculars! For months and months, I couldn't have gotten them except by violating the First Commandment of Acquiring, and that I would not do. Then came the national tragedy. The universe slipped a few cogs. Months went by, and I was starting to want to get up in the morning, when I noticed that SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE was offering the damn German binoculars, and no one was bidding on them! Ten days went by, the auction was winding down, no bids. Holy cow! I decided to take a closer look�

OH MY GOD! THE SELLER IS IN LEBANON! THE GUY IS PROBABLY AN AL QAEDA AGENT! HE ISN'T REALLY OFFERING TO SELL THOSE DGBs! I WOULD THINK I WAS BUYING BINOCULARS, AND HE WOULD MAIL ME A BOMB! I WAS DOOMED!

Now, gentle reader, comes the difficult part of this tale. You have probably built up a great deal of affection, even quiet admiration, for this writer. Obviously he is witty, with a keen philosophical mind, yet extraordinarily practical and down to earth. But here I must tell you that, in this moment of Religious Crisis, I was motivated by greed. Greed, greed, greed. Greed and nothing but greed. Greedy greed. The greediest greedy greed. I WANTED those damn German binoculars. And when I fall into such a Religious Fervor, I let NOTHING get in my way.

So I bid 'em and I bought 'em. Those damn German binoculars. I won't even tell you how much I paid. Let's just say that if you ever acquired a Dakota Longbow in .338 Lapua Magnum for the price of a tank of gas in your pickup, you would be in the same ball park, ratio-wise.

But I knew my doom was sealed.

Then something truly terrifying happened. The guy I bought the damn German binoculars from emailed me on the same day I won 'em to tell me 1) he was really, really happy I had bought his binocs (yeah, right. I knew why that was!) and 2) he was upgrading the shipping, at no extra cost, from surface mail (three to five weeks) to FedEx (three days). I knew that meant that in three days I would be dead.

Luckily I had thoughtfully arranged to have them shipped to my work, rather than my home. At least my widow would have a house to live in.

It was a Monday when I received the fateful email.

That THURSDAY a package from Lebanon arrived at my work. Three days! I can't even get a letter to someone across town in three days. And yet the package which I hoped was the German binoculars (but which I knew to be a bomb) had arrived in three days.

It was all happening too fast. The world was collapsing around me! Matters became much worse when the post woman dropped off the package, which was clearly marked "Lebanon" in several places, and which was wrapped in cheap paper, with suspicious bulges all around. She proceeded to alarm the hell out of everybody by commenting, "Hey! Y'all got a package from LEBANON! And it looks mighty funny!"

I opened that package very, very carefully. Inside was a brand new set of German binoculars which my covetousness had caused me to risk my life and the lives of my co-workers to obtain! Lord have Mercy. Glory Halleluiah and all the rest of it. I was glad to be alive.

The adventure buying the binoculars had taught me a hard earned lesson. What if the Lebanese guy really had been an Al Qaeda agent? It was clearer than ever that I needed that rifle.

Besides, now that I had gotten the binoculars, as ordained by the God of Gadgetry, I had to get the rifle. It was all part of the Plan.

By then, I had thought enough about firearms, read enough, talked to enough people, to realize that a fine rifle is a treasure. For one thing, a fine rifle is as near to perfect as it is possible for a machine to be. A fine rifle embraces all the principles of physics, up to and including quantum mechanics. Within a fine rifle, the moment of firing unleashes devastating explosions that are refined by the most sophisticated design science into a simple vector of the greatest force and precision. This is like seeing Dame Margot Fontayn knock out Mohammed Ali. To own a firearm is to enter a mythic realm.

But first I needed to find my FFL. Now for me, looking for an FFL was like Dante searching for Virgil, or Odyseus waiting for Hermes, or like Lewis and Clark needing to find Sacagawea. For my wife, it meant that I was going to be associating with red neck pinheads. Guys who, when they take their dogs for a walk, pee on the same tree. Instead, I found Dave.

Dave was an FFL out of love and devotion. Love of fine rifles, and devotion to all shooting sports. When Dave's best friend and personal FFL moved to Arkansas to make machine guns (!) Dave had stepped into the breach. Dave became my guide, teacher and friend. Willing to answer each and every question from a newbie musketeer. And about as far from a redneck pinhead as one could get. Dave was a glassblower, his province custom made scientific glassware. The meticulous care and concern it took to be a first-rate glassblower carried over into his love of rifles (or maybe it was vice-versa). Dave always spoke as slowly and carefully as he worked. For example, he never used contractions in his speech. Dave never said, "I'd rather" He always said, "I would rather" It gave a kind of elegance and old-fashioned courtliness to his spoken words.

Dave had thought for many years about the philosophy and psychology of firearms. Musing one day on his favorite subject, he said to me, "A fine rifle is the yacht of the poor man."

"I'm not sure I follow you there, Dave," I said.

He got a far away look in his eyes, like he was looking into a distance I could never see, trying to find the right words to bring me a Big Truth.

"Most of us cannot afford a yacht. Is not that true?" he asked.

"Most of us wouldn't want a yacht," I replied.

"That is probably true," he said, "but I am trying to make a point here. The point is that the same kind of freedom and adventure your rich man might find with his yacht, your poor man often finds with a well made rifle. As well as independence of spirit, self-reliance, responsibility. Like the Swiss, we have a long and honored tradition in the United States of fine riflemen and fine rifle women. As Thomas Jefferson said, "A rifle is the tooth of Liberty." Or maybe he said "the teeth of Liberty.""

"Abraham Lincoln," I said.

"I beg your pardon?" Dave said.

"I think it was Abraham Lincoln who said, "A rifle is the tooth, or teeth, of Liberty,"" I said.

"Very well, then," Dave said, "It was Abraham Lincoln, or maybe George Washington, or some other big kahuna who said it, or maybe I just made it up now, but it is a valid point, is it not?"

"Yes Dave," I said,"it is a valid point."

I understand that some owners of fine rifles give their rifles names, ((and even, note the double parentheses, sleep with their fine rifles)) but of course I am not the former and certainly not the latter. Even though I do live in California.

Now I am the owner of (notice I did not say "companion of") two fine rifles. I am still getting to know them. They are as different as two fine rifles can be. My M14 (Armscorp of Baltimore) is like a purebred Morgan horse - beautiful, spirited, and able to do whatever any rifle can do with a high degree of competence. My Remington 700 in .300 Winchester Magnum is like an Arabian, high strung, elegant, highly specialized for traveling long distances. I am still learning to use them for the task they have been bred to do for hundreds of years - shooting. But that's, that is, another story.

-- finis --

G: Obviously, guns are a semiotician’s wet dream. When you first started handling and firing guns, did you ever get freaked out, like “Holy Fucking Shit! I AM
HOLDING A GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING GUN!”?

H: Yes, yes and more yes. It is ceaselessly drummed into me that you better realize that you have a lethal machine in your hands when you have a fire arm. You better be healthily scared too. My teachers go by the strict ethic that there are no accidental shootings. The person who shoots someone else “accidentally” is always responsible for it.

I have become more respectful of the warrior ethic. We are taught that such a thing no longer exists, that the trenches and machine guns of WW I killed it off. But as an ideal to strive for, embracing honor, integrity, courage, a spirit of service, it’s not bad. I have found these qualities are highly valued among my “gun totin’ friends”. It’s very much a reputation-based culture. It doesn’t seem to matter what your politics or religion is. If you demonstrate those values, you get respect. There are apparently an awful lot of overweight,. middle aged guys out there who see themselves as warriors, and try in some measure to live up to an ancient ideal.

Well Greg, I know you are dying to ask me some more, but I have to go now. Let’s meet real soon and flap our jaws some more, OK good buddy?

G: That’s an affirmative, my strange friend.