Take a look at the two questions in this story’s headline. These are questions I’ve been asked a bunch of times, and if you’re a gun owner, you’ve likely been asked these questions, too. It’s not uncommon. And, in truth, when asked by someone who isn’t familiar with firearms, they can be fair questions. In our increasingly urbanized population, after all, fewer people grow up with guns around, and when there are guns around in many of our major cities, they are often in the hands of criminals, the law-abiding having been denied their Second Amendment rights to protection of family, home, and property.
As I said, I’ve been asked these questions a bunch of times, and by a bunch of people with a bunch of different motivations. Let’s take a look at some of the more common iterations.
These questions, like most questions that begin with “Why,” can come in three forms:
- A simple request for information in the course of conversation.
- Genuine curiosity, which leads to further discussion. Some people are not familiar with guns and gun owners and are curious to learn more.
- A petulant demand for justification, usually by a would-be gun grabber or gun ban advocate.
So, when asked, “Why do you need a gun?” my answers to the three forms above are generally:
“Why do you need a gun?”
- “A variety of reasons. Depends on the gun.”
- “Well, I have some for hunting, some for target shooting, some for informal shooting/plinking, some for the defense of my family, my home, and my property. If you’re interested, we can take a look in my safe and I can give you some examples.”
- “Screw you, that’s why.”
“How many guns do you need?”
- “X,” the value of “X” being how many guns I own. Also, “I don’t accept the concept of ‘need’ in this discourse. I own these guns because it suits me to do so.”
- “X,” as above. Also, “I own a variety of guns for a variety of purposes. I don’t necessarily ‘need’ them, but I like having them, and I like the shooting sports activities for which I own them. As far as how many, I’m the only one who decides how many guns I will own, and the honest answer is usually ‘as many as I have, plus a few more I still want.'”
- “Screw you, as many as I want.”
I have my reasons for owning guns and for owning a pretty substantial safe full of them. I’m a collector, mostly of pre-64 Winchesters and Belgian Brownings, although I have a thing for the neat little Ithaca 37 shotguns, too, and have a couple. I hunt — next week, loyal sidekick Rat and I will be out in the woods collecting spruce grouse, and I’ll take a moose if the chance presents itself. I shoot trap and sporting clays. I enjoy a little informal plinking and have spent many happy afternoons popping away at steel targets and clay birds with a .22 rifle or handgun.
My Old Man, having been a farmer much of his life, kept a 12-gauge pump gun around. To him, the shotgun was just another tool he kept on the place. It just happened to be one that was useful for dispatching pests and bagging the occasional grouse, pheasant, or rabbit for the pot.
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And a lot of today’s gun buyers have other reasons. Things have changed a lot in the fifty-some years I’ve been involved in shooting sports. When I was a kid, most of the gun world was aimed at hunting and target shooting. Concealable handguns were marketed in large part to police departments. But nowadays, self-defense and defense of family and property are big reasons for new gun buyers. And that’s understandable. The sad and sorry truth is the police, no matter how good-intentioned any individual cop may be, just can’t protect every individual citizen. There are too few cops and too many millions of miles of streets, highways and byways, alleys and walkways, and too many houses, buildings, empty lots, meadows, and barns. There’s no way a cop can be everywhere.
Let’s say a pair of thugs is kicking in your front door. By all means, call the cops – but what happens in the ten or twenty minutes it takes them to get there? Do you trust your wood-panel door to hold off the attackers until the police arrive? Or would you rather trust a .357 Magnum or a 12-gauge pumpgun?
But let’s be very clear: Those are reasons for owning a gun. Nobody — not in the United States — is required to present any justification for exercising a constitutional right — a natural right, the right to the defense of one’s person, family, home, property, and community.
I have not and do not offer any justification for owning guns. The only statement as to the reason I will offer to the question “Why do you own guns?” as a demand for justification is “Because it suits me to do so.” But, when you get right down to it, this is my justification:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Nothing more is required.