Growing up with guns was normal

Is it possible to talk about guns without making folks’ blood pressure spike? Let’s try.

Anyone who has sampled this page over the decades could tell you that I’m not a gun guy. I don’t own one. I never have. And I suspect I never will.

I’m also someone who sincerely believes that this nation would be better off with better gun laws, things like meaningful background checks, mandatory firearms training, age requirements on some purchases and other steps that tend to make my NRA friends — and I do have NRA friends — get a little grumpy.

But am I a “gun hater”?

I don’t think so.

Growing up in post-World War II America, I found that guns — the toy variety — were an essential part of my childhood.

Maybe the reason that there are so many gun owners today is that back in the day virtually every boy had at least one toy gun. And — even then — some of us owned arsenals.

One of my best friends, a guy whose parents tended to spoil him a bit, had so many toy guns he could outfit a small army. 

And when it came time for neighborhood play, he was the kid you turned to if you wanted something special, say a plastic version of a submachine gun or a cool toy replica of a Winchester repeater.

And what did we play? In my neighborhood, the game was simply called, “Guns.”

Not “cowboys and Indians.” Not “The Sands of Iwo Jima.” Just, “Guns.”

That’s probably because our plastic arsenal included models of weapons spanning more than a century. It didn’t matter if you were pretending to be an outlaw or a WW II commando.

The game of “Guns” was a great leveler.

The rules varied in their details, but one thing was consistent: It was every kid for himself or herself. There were no teams. There was no organization. There was simply chaos and guns.

And when the moment came along that you encountered another kid sneaking around that shed behind a neighbor’s garage and you were able to get the drop on him and yell, “Blam, blam, blam,” or make whatever cool gun-like noise you were able to come up with, your victim had to acknowledge being shot and then count to 50 or 100 before getting a “new life” and rejoining the game.

That, of course, is the moment when the game became divorced from reality.

In reality, there is no counting to 100 and getting a “new life.” Once you’re dead, you’re dead.

But was the game fun? You bet it was.

Some of my happiest childhood memories revolve around playing “Guns” on the west side of Portland.

So it’s hard for me to think of myself as a “gun hater.”

I also went through a period between about 10 and 12 when I could stand in the local gun shop for what seemed to be hours, lusting after a rifle that was calling my name.

The shop was run by Portland mailman — later mayor — Gene Romack in a converted garage behind his house on Pleasant Street. Its name: “Gene’s Sport Shop.”

And sport was what it was about. 

Well-thumbed copies of Field and Stream magazine and fishing tackle were part of the picture along with shotguns and pellet guns and BB guns and that one .22 that kept calling my name.

And then something happened.

I changed. And Gene’s Sport Shop changed.

It wasn’t that I began to hate guns; they just didn’t interest me that much any more. Other things — music, books, politics, poetry and (most importantly) girls — took their place.

I still liked the smell and the feel of Gene’s Sport Shop, but I sensed we were both going in different directions. 

Gene’s shop became less and less about hunting and sport and more and more about guns.

And I wandered off on another path.

Does that make me a “gun hater”? I don’t think so. I understand their visceral appeal and the fun they can represent.

What I hate is what we’ve allowed them to do to America.