The American Boy and his attempt to change the conversation

In college a friend of mine once labeled me “the American Boy.”

I didn’t really know this friend particularly well; we found ourselves in the same social circles with some frequency, but that was about it. The first time she called me that I brushed it off, hardly even wondering what had earned me that moniker. The second time she used the phrase was on Facebook, commenting on a picture of my girlfriend (now wife) and I.

“It’s the American Boy!”

Seeing the nickname forever inked onto social media prompted me to wonder, why am I “the American Boy?” In the photo we’re at the beach on summer vacation, standing arm in arm on the balcony of our high rise condo. I am sporting blue swim trunks and a dark navy t-shirt with my college’s name in small script over my heart. I am thin (those blue trunks no longer fit my present-day physique), taller than average, and have brown hair and blue eyes.

Oh, and let’s not forget that I am white. White as white can be. One glance at my bare chest would blind a person faster than a glasses-less glance at a partial solar eclipse (Looking at you, Donald).

I suppose “American boy” isn’t all that inaccurate. I grew up pretty much believing that’s what I was.

I was born in the South. My accent isn’t as strong as many Southern Americans, but I still extend my vowels a bit and words like ‘fixin’ and ‘ya’ll’ find their way into my vocabulary. I went to school mostly with a bunch of other white kids. I proudly said the Pledge of Allegiance each morning after the Lord’s Prayer (the Our Father once I moved on from a Lutheran elementary to a Catholic high school).

I learned all about Arkansas History in the fifth grade and listened wide-eyed to Ken Burns’ epic re-telling of the story of the Civil War my junior year of high school. I read Twain and Steinbeck. I felt I understood very well what it meant to be American. And I felt I understood very well what it meant to be Southern.

About the only thing that really made me different from many of my classmates is that I had never been hunting. Still haven’t in fact. Even in Little Rock, the state’s largest city, that is a somewhat unusual statement to make. It seemed like at least half the class, if not more, were at least occasional hunters. I remember many times coming to school on a Monday and listening to stories of some boy’s first buck or the exaggerated number of mallards he had blown out of the sky the Saturday before.

I don’t have a problem with hunting. My lack of experience shooting at animals is mainly the result of parents who chose not to do so themselves. Now, that’s not to say I haven’t fired a gun; my parents’ home does play host to many of those. Those guns, roughly a dozen altogether, weren’t to be used for shooting any four legged or winged creature. They were meant for protection. Just in case.

At least that’s the rationale my dad always used for owning them. Not a collector of guns per say, my dad’s armory was assembled in part by the few he bought for himself and the rest he acquired upon the passing of both sets of my grandparents, whose personal supply of firearms assimilated into my dad’s.

These guns are a part of my past, albeit one relegated to targeting the occasional watermelon. To be honest, it’s probably been ten years since I have even done that.

About twenty-four hours ago a gunmen rained bullets down on a crowd of concert-goers enjoying a Jason Aldean show in Las Vegas. When I rolled out of bed this morning and instinctively checked my social media, it was the first thing I saw. My initial reaction was shock, just before my brain fell, like clockwork, into a sadly well-versed stream of consciousness:

“Don’t get worked up.”

“These things are happening all the time.”

“Yes, it’s fucked up, obviously. And that guy is fucked up, obviously. But we live in a fucked up world that’s getting more fucked up every day, so what’s the point of getting worked up? Just don’t let it ruin your day.”

And so I got dressed, let the dog out, grabbed a Carnation healthy breakfast drink from the fridge, and headed out the door to start my week.

The obligatory office chatter, as one would expect, revolved around the shooting. People talked about how horrible it was. Co-workers brought up Sandy Hook and Pulse, which reminded me of Charleston and Aurora. Someone checked their computer screen and said “wow, they’re saying 58 now, I can’t believe it.”

Then we all went to work on our various projects and proceeded to do everything we would normally do on a Monday. I periodically checked the news, dutifully staying up-to-date on whatever updates the media might release, and when I walked out of the office door at the end of the day I commented to a co-worker how nice the weather was outside.

When I returned home I reflected on the ridiculousness of my own nonchalantness to the gravity of the situation. I quickly realized I had failed at my earlier directive. My day had been ruined. Not only by the Las Vegas shooting, but by my own conscious attempts to treat it as just another act of gun violence in a fucked up world.

When I mentioned my watermelon hunting experience as a kid, I left out a very important detail. Each time I pulled the trigger and sent fruity goop in all directions, it terrified me. The power of the kickback. The explosion from the barrel. The destructive power of the projectile I had intentionally set into motion.

The first (and admittedly, only) time I fired a shotgun my feet were incorrectly positioned. The firearm kicked hard into my shoulder and my eyes instantly began to water in pain. My small, wiry frame was nearly blown over by the impact and I missed my target dramatically. We were safe in our choice of shooting location, but I know the buckshot I put into some miscellaneous backwoods tree will be there long after that tree has rotted away. As someone who has fired a gun, I respect the device and its ability to do harm. And I fear anyone who does not share that respect, or, as is the case with so many mass shootings, is unable to respect it due to a very complex disease.

The truth is, this Southern “American Boy” was raised to believe that it was imperative to, at the very least, know how to handle a weapon. As much as I may have truly disliked them, I was taught that because the bad guys have them, the good guys must have them too. I was taught that by wielding them ourselves, we will be protected from those who wish to hurt us.

Is there a grain of truth there? Maybe. But the extent that Americans have distorted and used that rationale as an excuse to do nothing in the face of situations like the one in Las Vegas is abhorrent. So abhorrent, that this “American Boy” spent an entire day trying to repress all emotion in the face of another somber reminder of our broken country.

“Taking away or limiting the sales of guns will do nothing because the bad guys will always find a way to get their hands on them.”

I have heard this argument many times. My rebuttal is this:

If nine out of ten would-be mass shooters are able to obtain their guns illegally, but one is not, then 58 lives may very well have just been saved. 58 lives saved, if you ask me, makes changing the way we view and treat guns well worth it.

Make America one of the most difficult countries in the world to buy a firearm. Make background checks insanely rigorous. Require mental health examinations by trained psychologists mandatory for all gun owners, require a license to simply own a gun, and require renewal of those background checks every five years. Sponsor firearm buyback programs so that individuals will have an incentive to remove guns from the streets themselves. As harmless as people like my father are, a dozen guns laying around is unnecessary. Limit the number of registered firearms to one per person per type. If they want to buy a new one, they will simply have to trade in their old one. Ban the sale of automatic weapons completely.

I’m sorry if these suggestions seem to trample on a civil right granted by the constitution, but there are too many nuts on the streets with weapons and too much gun violence in our cities. Harsh condemnation has never really cut it, and I implore our lawmakers to realize that laws and penalties are necessary to reduce tragedies like these. No, the people who pull the trigger in these shootings are obviously not law followers. But by changing the conversation and brining into focus issues like mental health and gun ownership, perhaps we can stop more of these shooters before they ever have the chance to kill.

If I am in fact “the American Boy” then I, like all the other millions of American boys and girls who live in this country, have the right to change the conversation on who has the right to own a gun. If we don’t change how we view this issue, events like Las Vegas will continue while we go about our daily lives.