Rage Agin' Th' Machine Gun

Rage
Against	The
Machine Gun

Greg asked me, simply, "Would you like to go shoot a machine gun tomorrow?" Until recently, I might have said no. But I've been trying to do more of those things that I was previously unwilling to do for reasons of being a snob, lazy or politically unwilling.
	Greg and I had just finished an interview with a client. We ate lunch. Everyone at lunch thought our trip was a hoot. I was worried about the cost. At $8 for 50 rounds of ammunition, I could see an automatic weapon becoming very expensive very fast.
Plus, I've been a long time opponent of guns. All guns. I've always thought that hunting was a bogus sport and that saving the lives, eyeballs or other pieces of children shot in the home every year was worth forcing Clem and Jimmy-Bob to go to Safeway to pick up a duck.
	But Clem and Jimmy-Bob are members of the world's most powerful and perplexingly logic / compassion avoidant PAC and that counts for something. Probably a bit too much.
It is also worth mentioning that we did this in Phoenix Arizona. The land of Barry Goldwater and Senator John McCain. The state that prides itself on its strong family values. This has led to Arizona being one of two states in the USA where you can have your MP5 and shoot it too.
	Yes, Phoenix is the land of family values. You can't go outside your house without tripping over a church or a car with a Jesus fish. That is the state's number one industry, it seems. Number two (but a very very close second) is divorce lawyers. No matter where you drive you will see evidence of the innate lack of introspection, identy and self--awareness of the Phoenix population.
Two evenings before we went to spew bullets, we had dinner with my mother. She informed us that two of her horses had been shot recently. Not shot at, mind you, but actually shot. Both in the face. Both survived. Both from long range. They were target practice of the family valued, second amendment misinterpreting, local population.
	I tell you all this because it directly relates to my decision to use a firearm for the first time in my life. More than a when in Rome situation, this was a byproduct of where I was. Phoenix. A city where I have spent more than my share of time over the last ten years.
When I was in Hong Kong recently, I spoke to my mother on the phone. She was worried about my safety in that strange land. I told her that a big item on the news that day was that a police officer had been threatened with a knife. She laughed and said that in Phoenix in the previous month they had shot eight of their police officers.
	This did not surprise me. True, Phoenix is not a large city. True, Phoenix is not a major port. But Phoenix is violent by its very nature. You can see it in the way the city is built. It is a city built around the beauty of vacant lots and litter.
In Phoenix, as my father said, "Walls Rule". Everyone walls themselves off from their neighbors. There is a premeditated, deliberate effort to avoid any sense of community. People will live in what they call "gated communities" and feel that this is community.
	But these attempts at manufactured community only serve to fragment the population more and more. In fact, in downtown Phoenix they felt that they needed more housing so people would be there to use the area after working hours. So they built a gated community. Huge high walls surround it. It has no connection with the downtown other than proximity.
The Phoenix region is further walled off by an ever growing series of deadly, unfriendly freeways. These roadways are growing at a violent rate. Further expanding the non-city of Phoenix further and further into a desert not intended to support human life in the first place.
	Years ago I had the good fortune to have a long layover at O'hare international airport. I had nothing to do and was tired of the songs on my walkman so I ventured off in search of Hare Krishnas. They weren't there. The Larouchniks were, however.
They told me all about how I could colonize the moon and how urban sprawl was a myth. They told me that the key to better feeding the world's population had nothing to do with topsoil, but had everything to do with developing new and better chemicals. They told me how they were out to save the world.
Then a man came up and they had this exchange: Man: Your with Lyndon Larouche, right? Lnik: Sure am! Man: You people are mean. Lnik: No we're not, we're just trying to do good work for the people of America. Man: Well I'm a gay man and you people are making my life hell! Lnik: Oh ya are, huh? What's your name? Man: I'm not giving you my name. Lnik: (grabs man) What's your name? Man: Let go of me! I'm not telling you my name. Fuck you! Lnik: That's how ya get AIDS, heh heh.
This is Phoenix, Arizona
	So just as if I were hanging with the Larouchniks and it came time to sing a hymn about Lyndon's tax evasion, I was in Phoenix and I basically had two choices: shoot a gun or get a divorce. I chose the former.
Greg and I drove out to Shooter's World in Phoenix to meet our appointment to shoot and MP5. A German-made fully automatic machine gun. The cost - $12 for the lane, $25 for the gun and instructions, and $8 per box of Ammo. When we were done, we dropped about $100.
	Greg had actually been there the day before shooting handguns. so he knew his way around. The place had tons of guns. Being one of the few places in the US where you can buy tons of lethal armaments, stick 'em in your pants, and walk out -- they had a wide selection. I was particularly impressed with the large stock of exploding, burning and flesh ripping bullets.
We got our lane, were instructed on how to load and shoot. We loaded up our 4 clips and went to town. I am not proud to inform you that after having never fired a gun before (quite a feat for a Nebraska boy) I was able to totally rip my little paper human beings to shreds. Out of a possible 240 points, I later figured out I scored 224.
	If only I did so well on the GRE.
We left after shooting. Which is understandable. I noted that you were supposed to unload your gun before leaving the shop. but there was a place to reload right outside. Another testament to weak, arbitrary laws. I read in the Wall Street Journal a quote that seems appropriate here. A lawyer for the NRA was discussing recent legal scholarship funded by the NRA regarding the 2nd Amendment. "The initial intent of the law doesn't really matter when you're in court, you just want to win,": he said.
	We got in the car and Greg asked, "So what did you think?" I really didn't have much of a reply. "What are your emotions right now?" he rephrased. I told him that I was disturbed that it was so easy to use the weapon. "You mean that it's so easy to kill someone."
The MP5 has almost no recoil. Like someone lightly tapping your shoulder. It's comfortable, easy to aim, quite steady. And I'm certain there are other guns that are even easier to use.
	Greg told our lunch companions that he was doing this because guns scared him and he wanted to confront that. I don't know how he feels now, but I can say that guns themselves don't scare me any more than they did before -- but the people who use them do.
It wasn't until I fired that weapon and utterly annihilated my target that I realized exactly how violent Phoenix was and how violent urban form can be. When I shot that gun, Phoenix Arizona, for the first time ever, made sense to me.