With power comes great responsibility

Muse #517 - they go hand in hand

My wife had been wanting to shoot guns for a long time. And I took her to a shooting range to try it out as a surprise anniversary present, Sunday last.

We tried out a variety of guns including a Glock .22, a Glock 9 mm (the standard cop variety), and the extremely heavy Smith and Wesson .38 revolver.

For me, I only thing I had tried before was the Winchester 220 rifle during my high school and university days as part of my National Cadet Corp training. Those rifles were relics of the World War II era and were difficult instruments to use, especially while lying down on the ground.

Shooting guns makes you certainly ponder about the efficacy and usage of these as a tool. Our handler obviously a gun enthusiast was trying to convince us that guns don’t kill people, but people do. But that would be the wrong way of looking at it. Tell that to the families of the kids and teachers who died in the recent Texas shooting.

The availability of tools certainly does make an impact on their use. If someone wanted to kill a classroom full of children with say a quiver full of arrows, he or she will have to lug a whole bunch around. It is just the convenience of an AR-22 assault rifle that can fire out rounds at a rapid-fire rate that made it easy for such killings.

Therefore the power of such tools comes with great responsibility. And the big question is “how do we make sure that it does not end up with people who will use it irresponsibly” and this has no easy answer. I do realize that Canada is more conservative on this issue, but this did not prevent the 2020 shooting in Nova Scotia where a rampant gunner ended up killing 22 people.

And for me, trying these guns once was certainly enough. It is not my thing and it was good to know what they are. The first shot on each of these guns was a surprise. Then you know. Of course not intricately, but hey I am not going to the Olympic shooting competitions any time soon. Perhaps never.