Idiot Control

Gun Control

Generational Connections

Idiot Control

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

           

            I was talking to Lane the other day about the influences of good grandfathers.

            The scene was set whereby Jim and I had returned to the house only to be greeted by our grandfathers, the Rice brothers, standing in front of the barn door.

“You boys get in here,” ordered elder brother, Blue.

            Our crime was not the shooting of two deer that hung from the rafters in that same barn, but, rather, the absence of tags on those legally taken deer. We had hung them and proceeded to hunt some more with our licenses intact in our back pockets.

            “Don’t you ever pull that stunt again!” was one of the less poisonous demands that came from my grandfather, Carl.

            When the door was finally opened and we stumbled out into the sunlight with our pathetic lives intact, you can rest assure we never, ever left a deer untagged after we had killed it. We would police ourselves and anyone who was along regardless of age. We were proficient enforcers of a hunting stewardship that would never be broken.

            It is amazing what such lessons can do when you are 13 and 14 years old, respectively.

            Generational Connections

            We were equally proficient in the use of our firearms.

            We had possessed toy guns from the time we could hold them. The handling of those toys was met with the same grandfatherly guidance.

            “Don’t you point that gun at anybody!” was the immediate, shrill instruction.

            We knew from the beginning what the deadly use of guns entailed. We were present when beeves or hogs were killed for butchering. We were present when deer were killed long before we carried guns and hunted. We were there when vapor from warm intestines were released on subfreezing mornings on the side of a hill or in the bottom of some canyon.

We were taught how to care for the meat. It became our job to hang the meat at night and rewrap it during the day. Even as kids, we could do a passable job of butchering without any adult supervision. We were also there at the table when historical recipes were served with the emphasis of those natural gifts of meat that we harvested.

It was very natural to us and it became sacred.

I can remember the first time my grandfather pulled his old Model 94 .30-30 from the gun cabinet and sat me down for a lesson in handling it. He talked about it as the friend it had long been. He had shot ducks heads off down at the river with it. He had killed deer on 74 Mountain, on Bear Creek, on Sacaton, at the Rastus place, in the Trivio pasture, and all those other magical places that had been part of discussions since I could remember.

            After the introduction, he laid it across my lap. I remember how cold it was to touch. It was heavy. He corrected me immediately as I reached for the metal of the barrel. “You hold it on the wood,” he said. “That is what the stock is for.”

            We talked more about it and its use. Then he took it from me and returned it to the gun cabinet. “It will be yours when you are old enough and know how to use it.”

            He kept his promise, and, today, it is one of my most precious possessions. The lessons were not simply about the weapon, though. They were filled with do’s and don’ts, responsibilities, and respect. The Model 94 became a sidebar to much more. In fact, it was a minor part of a greater theme. It was always a tool rather than the focus. As I consider it as I type, I realize it has also become a symbol.

It is a generational baton that will soon be the possession of my own grandson.

            Gun Control

             The little carbine was never used with malicious intent because it was never placed in the hands of an idiot. Our grandfathers made sure of that and that is not an exaggeration. If we acted like idiots, we were treated like idiots. Like that day behind closed doors in the barn on Sacaton, we learned the consequences of acting like fools. By the time we were early teens, we should have known better. Our actions pain me even today, and, if Jim was alive, I am sure he would agree with me.

            We would never intentionally disappoint our grandfathers like that again. More importantly, we would never disappoint ourselves, and guns had nothing to do with it. Certainly, they were there, but the misdeed was not a condition of them being present. The misdeed was entirely the actions of the idiots that carried them that day.

            As I look at the lesson today, I am sure our grandmothers would have handled the situation much differently. Both of them would have missed the primary point, the irresponsibility of our actions. Prompted, though, my grandmother would have screamed and called for the removal of guns from our possession. Jim’s grandmother would have reacted somewhat differently. She would not have closed the door. Rather, she would have had us lined up poking her finger in our face all the while rising up from her 5’not much” stature to stand ten feet tall and tower above us. Her tiny voice would have commanded our attention without any opportunity of rebuttal. She would have called us useless boys and blamed our grandfathers for trusting us with anything the least of which were guns.

            Neither of them, though, would have addressed the lasting, and most important demand. That could only come from our grandfathers and their collective life experiences. We must remember they were one generation removed from dangerous westward migration from Texas and elsewhere, encounters with Geronimo and Mangus, and empty bellies while hunting wild cattle trying to forge a life where nothing existed. They were taught from their fathers and grandfathers that guns were primary tools of existence. They knew what that meant first hand. They had saved themselves the day the grizzly bear left the dogs only to come to them on the overlooking rock with intentions to kill. When it was over, they sat with him and the dogs attempting to roll a smoke trying to regain their senses and their composure.

They had reduced threat of ruin from cats and other bears as a necessity. They had provided sustenance with their arms, and they knew enough about them to use them only if there was reason. Woe be the intruder or the perpetrator of threat, however, if they were forced to use them. When they shot at something it was normally for keeps.

They lived with guns and they expected us to be as proficient and capable with them as they were. It was never a matter of guns. It was always the matter of us. We needed to be dependable and that came with issues and needs much broader than guns alone.

Idiot Control

The gun debate has heated up once again.

The idiot in Las Vegas has made sure of that. Horrific beyond words, his actions simply bely what his tracks show. How can anyone these days have essentially no electronic footprint especially one that was an accountant, worked for the IRS, the Postal Service, sold real estate, and owned at least one computer? How can a big time Vegas gambler who has assets across the landscape be an electronic nonentity?

There may be a solution, but there certainly isn’t one at this point. The only answer is we are told he is a killer of historical proportions and he chose to do his work with guns. He could have been intent on killing with explosives, too, but his default was firearms.

So, we live with the fallout from another idiot.

All of us will wind up paying his dues. We will feel compelled to rationalize his thoughts to defend our guns.

My grandfather would simply say idiots and thugs shouldn’t be given the unsupervised use of any gun. Implicit in that is we will be challenged to accept the blame. Hank has the different view. He believes everyone has the right to have a gun, but anybody who uses it with deadly, unilateral intent shall face the same deadly consequences without exception.

He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword.

The problem with the former is we would all be called racists or Nazis if we suggest anyone is an idiot or a thug. The problem with the latter is the social justice baiters would call us Nazis or racists if we lined a killer up in the city square and terminated his future exploits.

So, we must live with words, and without … resolution.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “This idiot would have been best served in the barn with the door closed.”