Sometime in the ‘80s I decided I was going to learn how to shoot. This was long before I got involved with FOR. I was looking to add a little excitement to my life, and since most of the things that people ordinarily turn to for excitement were out of bounds for a serious practicing Muslim — or else way too expensive for my modest pocketbook — I found myself at a bit of a loss. I wanted to be a teeny bit transgressive, but also to stay within the bounds of the law, and the Law. And then I found out I could pick up a Ruger Mark II target pistol for about 200 bucks. There was just enough of a hint of danger there.
I had always been terrified of weapons. Police officers, with their holsters on their hips, gave me the heebie-jeebies whenever I ran into them. So the possibility of overcoming a phobia added a certain psychological piquancy to the restlessness that made up most of my motivation. And in fact, it kind of worked. I started to see the person behind the gun.
The Pearl River Gun Club was located not 15 minutes from where I lived, and members shot at the local National Guard armory. I was soon the only woman in the club, which was obvious; the only Muslim, which was not (since in those days I didn’t cover my head while out in the world); and the only political leftist, which was somewhere in-between. The men of the club were scrupulously courteous to me and never made a single political statement while I was in earshot. But somehow we all knew where we stood.
Picking up that loaded target pistol and hefting it for the first time was an emotionally complex moment. I can feel it to this day. Some people scoff at a .22 as a kind of toy, but it’s no kind of toy at all. The gun safety instructor made it very clear to us that we must never, ever, point a pistol at anyone or carry it with a bullet in the chamber. A carelessly let-off .22 bullet can travel a mile and bring down a total stranger. As soon as you are holding a weapon, you are a potential killer. Locating that potential killer in myself was a sobering revelation. So was the completely unexpected discovery of a constant subliminal hum of vulnerability that was suddenly shut down. I hadn’t even realized that I had it. For this background noise to go silent produced a kind of awe. It occurred to me that the sensation could be addicting.
As it turned out, I was a pretty mediocre shot. It’s not so easy to hit a target with a handgun, even a lightweight semiautomatic like the Ruger Mark II. They’re heavier than they look, hard on the arms, and require focus, concentration, and a surprising understanding of how your own body is going to react to even start to get anything anywhere near the bullseye. But this was the sport; that was the point. Shooting well was a skill that had to be developed, and that a person could be proud of. For this reason the men of the Pearl River Gun Club were pretty dismissive of automatic weapons. Any fool could hit a target with one of those.
Eventually I had to give up on my firearms adventure. I never found a real shooting buddy, and Muslims are supposed to avoid intoxicants, even in small quantities, anyway.
In the years since the ‘80s, many people who had never felt particularly vulnerable started to feel vulnerable, and many people who had always felt vulnerable found their sense of exposure increase. Across the nation, we began to self-medicate with the fantasy of safety that firearms produce, and a powerful fantasy it is. It’s no different than fentanyl, really, or crack. It starts out feeling so good, and then there you are.
Because firearms don’t actually make you safe, especially when everyone has one. Any soldier can tell you that. Constantly carrying an instrument of death brings on hypervigilance, which is next door to paranoia. Suddenly the threat you were fearing is hiding everywhere, ready to jump out at you as soon as your guard is down. And the more your perception of threat increases, the more firepower you crave. Maybe you will finally feel safe if you can wipe “them” all out. And if not, you can at least take them down with you.
What people are desperately seeking, when they spray torrents out of their AK-47s or their AR-15s, is an end to their own pain. But healing will never come out of the barrel of a gun.
We’re hoping this issue of Fellowship will help with the detox.