Peace and Environment News* September 2000
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Peace and Environment News * September 2000 |
by John Cameron
As a child I played with two toy pistols—a Roy Rogers special and a small double-barreled toy shotgun that fired corks. But fantasy turned into reality the day I saw the Colt .45 mother kept in her steamer trunk.
The pistol had belonged to father, who served as an artillery officer in World War One. It came into mother's possession after he died of pneumonia in a Montreal hospital when I was five years old.
One summer at the cottage a visiting friend offered to show mother how to fire the .45, perhaps on the pretense she might want to use it to protect her family, but more likely because of interest in the weapon. The demonstration produced a very large bang and a big fascination for me.
On a day when everyone had gone away in the boat to play golf on a course near the south end of the lake, I went up to mother's bedroom on the second floor of the cottage. The big blue steel trunk standing on end was nearly as tall as I was. Finding the right key in a collection on the dresser, I opened the trunk.
The pistol, housed in a worn web holster, was lying in the second drawer under some clothes. This classic weapon, with its walnut paneled handle, was in prime condition, with only a few scratches on the barrel. I took it out of the holster and removed the cartridge clip to see if it was empty. I played with it for a while, imagining myself to be one of the characters in the pulp crime magazines "Triumph" and "Champion" which I bought at the corner store when we were in town. Then I put the gun back in the trunk and locked it.
On subsequent days when the family was away, I removed the gun, then dismantled the breech and barrel. Later still I would oil the gun before putting it back together. Finally I decided to fire it.
The cottage is beside a lake below a gentle hill. I walked up the hill, past a small cabin and fired one shot into the hillside. Although the gun kicked in my hand and the report was satisfyingly loud, the result of all this preparation was less than I expected because it was so quick. I cleaned the barrel afterwards and never touched the gun again.
Air gunner training
It has been suggested that early experiences with firearms, real and make-believe, may have some deep-seated relationship with sexual identity. Perhaps the effects linger into manhood. And this may explain the virulence, the anger, expressed in the published letters of some opponents to federal firearms legislation.
However, it wasn't some overpowering Freudian impulse that landed me in the gun turret of an aging Fairey Battle Bomber in the late fall of 1944. It was the fortunes of war.
I was being trained as an air gunner. The Browning .303 calibre machine gun that we came to know intimately didn't stimulate fantasy, although it may have figured in my dreams, after days of taking it apart and learning to clear the breech block in the dark.
When the weather was too bad in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to fly, we would belt ammunition and look at slides of German aircraft, like the ME 109, which would be flashed on the screen to develop instant recognition. We also learned to recognize our own fighters, for obvious reasons.
Years later I met the wildlife biologist who was advising on the development of short Super 8 films showing different species of ducks in flight, much like our aircraft recognition training. The idea was to teach duck hunters to recognize the species under field conditions and avoid shooting those protected during some seasons. The series was to be sold to hunting and fishing clubs, but it never took off. Unlike air gunners, hunters don't have to pass game recognition tests.
In his book The River Never Sleeps, Roderick Haig-Brown, the great western writer on fishing and hunting, describes his early training in England.
He (a friend of his father) taught as good teachers do by example....I learned quickly that while we were out I must see everything and know everything—the identity of birds by their flight, the line that rabbits take in bolting from a certain place, any shift of wind, the change of a field from stubble to plow, any lowering or raising of a river by the farmer's manipulation of irrigation hatches. Above all, I must be ready when game flushed; I could miss and be forgiven, provided I offered no excuse...If I fired a dangerous shot, if I failed to break my gun (open the double's breech) before climbing a fence or crossing a hedge, I must go home in disgrace.
Telling a deer from a cow
It may be unreasonable to expect this level of performance from the average hunter. Apart from safety training required in most provinces, what demands are made for some degree of skill and knowledge of natural history, at least of game animals? I suspect that some hunters can't tell a ruffed grouse from a flicker, or a white tailed deer at 100 metres from a cow. Or a human being from a bear, a fatal mistake that occurs occasionally.
Most provincial requirements are too loose. The reason for this is plain: tourist operators, sporting goods stores, manufacturers of guns and ammunitions and the aggressive and well-financed National Rifle Association all promote hunting and marksmanship and oppose more demanding eligibility requirements.
Some critics of federal registration of firearms may agree that many hunters are ill-trained and have a limited knowledge of wildlife. But they will also probably argue that these limitations have nothing to do with the state creating this expensive bureaucratic registration procedure that will not affect the illegal trade in weapons by criminals and merely acts as a sop to urban demands that something be done to reduce violent crimes in the cities.
Responsible owners
The problems with firearms, however, do not just lie with ignorant or criminal behaviour, or their use in violent domestic disputes, which are not limited to city folk. Combine poorly stored weapons with inquisitive youngsters and you have a situation that can lead to tragedy. For example, two teenagers in BC died in separate accidental shootings when they were fooling around with guns.
When a firearm is registered in your name, you are the responsible, identifiable owner. Surely that fact will affect the care with which you store the gun. I don't see registration as detracting from the sports of hunting and target shooting but simply adding emphasis to the care which these weapons demand.
I was a lucky boy not to have caused some tragedy with my father's pistol. Mother never learned of my escapade. In locking up the gun, it would seem, she was taking a totally adequate precaution.
I wonder how many guns there are, in trunks or storerooms, perhaps grandfather's .303 or Uncle Bob's 12 gauge pump. In fact, what is in that dust-covered box in your basement?
John Cameron is interested in wilderness conservation.
Converted November 8, 2000 - Lg
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