The First Step is Admitting You Have a Problem

Hi. My name is Tammy and I love guns. (Crowd says in unison, "Hi Tammy.")I've loved guns for around twenty years, and it is getting close to being a perversity. (Crowd nods understandingly.)*Sigh* It all began innocently enough when I was twelve and my uncle took me out into the middle of the Sonoran desert to hunt rattle snakes with a Colt .45. Oh my, yes, that was fun! And they tasted just like really garlicky and buttery chicken. Then the next year it was a trip to Alaska where we spent more time with the .45, and a .22 rifle, a crossbow, a compound bow (they like their weapons in Palinvillia) and then, the grand finale that ruined me from ever being a passive, peace-loving hippie--three sticks of dynamite in an abandoned quarry. Later the neighbors (that lived three miles away) complained we had caused their dishes to fall out of cupboards. Oops! But the real thrill of that day was crouching behind a berm to hide from flying projectiles and watching as a hubcap or some kind of scrap metal screamed over our heads at such a high velocity it was more something felt than seen. I knew in a primal lizard-brain way that if I'd stood up a second before, I would have been decapitated, which was oddly thrilling and terrifying at the same time. It was pure power. (Some of the crowds' eyes begin to gleam in repressed longing.)And things just got worse. It was an obsession that I couldn't shake. From there it was taking classes in criminal justice in college just so I could go to the range (the crowd nods sympathetically). And then, the ultimate sacrifice in a soul-crushing need to feed a jonz, the army. All those huge, darkly gleaming bits of black metal just waiting to be…um, shot off (tittering fills the back of the room).Anyway, in all seriousness, an M16 is alright, for a get-the-job-done-with-no-flourish device. But the need was strong and I had to get my hands on something, well, bigger. The M249 squad automatic rifle was the perfect hunk of joy in a manageable package with a fire rate of 800-1000 rounds per minute (gasps of excitement). And an M60, well, it left nothing to be desired (other than a reduction in weight). I started seeking ways to get the range more often, offering to clean others' weapons, carry their ammo, whatever it took. Then I met the Mark 19 and a few claymore mines and I thought I'd gone to heaven. Using either of those was like being inside a dragon's heart--dark, thunderous, massive, monstrous. There's nothing quite like holding a human-manufactured object that has the force and power to blow the shit out of any living thing with something as easy and as effortless as a trigger pull. It's a magic that should not be accessible to human hands, but somehow it has become exactly that, and has changed the world in ways our ancestors could never have comprehended. The fascinating and frightening thing about a gun is how freaking easy it is to use. A curse, really.But finally, an intervention happened. I woke up with yet another lingering hangover from too much gunpowder and realized the army was just a terrible enabler. I had to get out, put it all behind me, and start a new, non-weaponized life. It was hard (but not that hard, let's be honest, the military exists to suck your soul down a giant ethics-compromising sewer), but I did it. There were a few years in there where I never touched anything more dangerous than a boomerang.But sometimes these little peccadilloes can be enjoyed in moderation. One must simply set limits. So I took the liberty of visiting a very old friend of mine last weekend who shares the same fetish. Between guns and Scotch, we are quite the aficionados. This friend of mine kills bad guys for a living--oh, don't worry, the government pays him to do it and even tells him who they are, so it's alright--which gives him a special appreciation for the finer details necessary in a firearm that's guaranteed to stop something that requires stopping. Fortunately, all we had to worry about were zombies. The slow-- make that, totally immobile--kind. Sadly, I have to admit, my aim has fallen way behind the power curve. But I can still hit 'em where it counts.