{"id":11204,"date":"2010-06-02T12:00:46","date_gmt":"2010-06-02T17:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=11204"},"modified":"2010-06-02T10:04:00","modified_gmt":"2010-06-02T15:04:00","slug":"fair-enough-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=11204","title":{"rendered":"Fair Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve bagged on the City Pages’ <\/em>Matt Snyders a time <\/a>or two<\/a>\u00a0for his flights into context-challenged, myopically-biased political writing.<\/p>\n

But fair is fair; this piece <\/a>on the “gun show loophole” is excellent, well-balanced, and…fair.<\/p>\n

It kicks off with a conversation with this blog’s good friend Andrew Rothman…:<\/p>\n

“If there’s an unequivocal opposite to growing up around guns,” says Andrew Rothman<\/a>, “it’s being raised by New York Jews.” He puts down his glass of water and wipes his dark goatee with a napkin. It would be quite the outlandish statement were he not talking about himself.<\/p>\n

“I grew up believing guns were bad,” he continues. “That’s what my parents taught me. But they also taught me to read. That was their first mistake.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…and somehow managed to go to press without a quote from this blog’s other good friend (and my own carry permit training instructor), the ubiquitous Joel Rosenberg.<\/p>\n

Snyders, by his own account, attended three gun shows trying to find a seller who’d let him buy a piece without running him through all the legal hoops – as the media and the gun-control groups who tell them what to think assure is is inevitable:<\/p>\n

“So, um, what’s the difference between a Glock<\/a> and a Beretta?” I asked.<\/p>\n

A stupid question in this environment, and also a suspicious one. It’d be like attending the Cannabis Cup and asking a vendor the difference between hashish and marijuana.<\/p>\n

“Well, Glocks are easier to use, I suppose, with a trigger-on-trigger safety, instead of an external lever,” he says. “Beretta, on the other hand, is a more traditional pistol with a hammer instead of a slide.”<\/p>\n

I opt for neither, going instead with the Hi-Point. He hands me a clipboard containing a questionnaire\u2014the background check required of all licensed firearms dealers. The so-called “gun show loophole” refers to sales between two individuals. The occasional guy walking around with a rifle and makeshift price tag are not required to check in with the national criminal database each time they make a sale…<\/p>\n

…”You have your permit to purchase, right?” asks the vendor.<\/p>\n

The answer to the question was an unfortunate no.<\/p>\n

“No permit to purchase?” he said. “You’re shit outta luck, my friend.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You might be surprised that the City Pages <\/em>would cover the issue fairly – indeed, I was.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Again.\u00a0 Because it was in the winter of 1994, as the\u00a0“shall issue” movement was just gathering steam in Minnesota, that I saw the first fair, balanced piece about concealed carry…<\/p>\n

…in the City Pages.\u00a0 <\/em>Written by none other than Steve Perry.\u00a0 So it’s not without precedent.<\/p>\n

Snyders took Rothman’s carry permit training class – and like a lot of beginners, did pretty good.\u00a0 He also catches the appeal of shooting like few people I’ve read on the left:<\/p>\n

After five minutes and 25 rounds of warm-ups, it’s time for the test. An inexplicable wave of adrenaline washes through my arms and torso as I clumsily load five 9mm rounds into a magazine. I slap the magazine into the handle grip of a midnight-black semi-automatic Glock<\/a> 17, and take aim.<\/p>\n

Pop! Pause. Pop! Pop! Pause. Pop! Pop!<\/p>\n

After seeing the five shots land true, Rothman instructs me to reload ten more rounds and squeeze them off. I oblige. Nerves settled, I begin to understand the elusive appeal of the gun. To be in control of a tool this powerful and deadly is to experience a visceral, almost intoxicating degree of autonomy. It’s sort of like the initial few days of giddy emancipation one feels after receiving a driving license, all contained in a flex of an index finger.<\/p>\n

I won’t tell the other guys,” Rothman says as the target reels back six additional feet, “but you’re shooting a perfect score so far.”<\/p>\n

The words of encouragement proved to be a jinx. The next two shots veer five inches off-target, one high and to the left, the other just high. Ignoring the occasional spent shell casing peppering my head, I continue to blast away, each shot about two seconds apart. I regain control and finish with a score of 146.<\/p>\n

I’m now eligible for a permit to carry in Minnesota.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kudos on the score and the story.<\/p>\n

(But I got a 149…)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve bagged on the City Pages’ Matt Snyders a time or two\u00a0for his flights into context-challenged, myopically-biased political writing. But fair is fair; this piece on the “gun show loophole” is excellent, well-balanced, and…fair. It kicks off with a conversation with this blog’s good friend Andrew Rothman…: “If there’s an unequivocal opposite to growing up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-war","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11204"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11206,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11204\/revisions\/11206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}