Guns everywhere
What it’s like in Trumpy Murka:
I think about guns because guns are what I talked about most for the last several months as I ran in our local Republican primary for county magistrate. Not gas prices. Not the “stolen” election. Not caravans at the southern border. Not abortion. Not the mundane, budget-related duties of the seat I was running for. I talked about guns. I am a Democrat who ran for local office as a Republican because in Anderson County, Kentucky, right down the road from the state capitol, Democrats no longer have a prayer of winning a partisan election, even if it is to serve in a nonpartisan job. This is die-hard Trump country now. Donald Trump won the county in both 2016 and 2020 with more than 70 percent of the vote. I figured that running on the Republican ticket, talking neighbor to neighbor with Republicans in a sensible manner about issues like guns would give me a fair shot.
It didn’t. She lost “spectacularly.”
The term “gun culture” gets tossed around. But what does it mean to live in a place rooted in Trumpian (angry, unabashed, aggrieved, armed-to-the-teeth) 2022 gun culture?
I think about guns because, two days before our May 17 primary, a friend removed my campaign signs from his yard. Around 9:30 that morning, while I was driving to Sunday school and church, he had heard the pop-pop of gunshots as men in trucks drove by, randomly yelling my name and Hillary Clinton’s and cursing about liberals.
I think about guns because, in mid-April, it was rumored that a local machine parts shop had a doormat in the store with the face of a longtime female magistrate on it. It read “Wipe Your Feet Here.” I wanted to see this doormat for myself and ask some questions: Did they have a supply? Was it for sale? Who created it? The first two friends I told begged me not to go. Did I know the owner carries a gun? If I went, they each cautioned independently, would I take a law enforcement officer with me. I thought this sounded ridiculous. “Just have the officer wait for you in the parking lot!” one insisted. When I arrived at the shop, without the police, I pulled in behind a grayish gold truck with a “Let’s Go Brandon” sticker on the back window, and sat there thinking, “I don’t belong here. What am I doing?” I left.
I think about guns because, later the same day, I made myself go back to the shop. The owner was not there, so I asked the woman behind the counter my questions. She was angry. She went in the back to get a man. What man? Would he be armed and angry? I left as fast as I could.
It sounds nightmarish. Granted some of this is her perception and questions about what might happen, but the guys in trucks shooting guns sound all too real.
People here openly carry their guns. Whether I am stopping by Kroger to pick up ice cream, grabbing a coffee on Main Street or stocking up on household supplies at Walmart, I am constantly aware that there are people around me carrying guns.
And that is much too real.
Anecdotally, my true father, a semi-retired Methodist minister in the South recently relayed to me his worst church home experience. Apparently his entire congregation would (proudly) go armed everywhere, even in the church. This was bad enough, but when they’d get into arguments (quite common) they’d pull guns on each other. In one instance a church member who served as my father’s mechanic was shot to death “by accident” when one of the other members tapped on the window glass of his car with the barrel of a revolver after yet another argument.
I’m guessing in an area with so many openly carried firearms they’re not just pointing them at their political enemies; those guns don’t stay in their holsters in public.
Here too, 20 miles south of the border with Canada, and just 90 miles north of Seattle. It used to be uncommon to see people open-carrying handguns in the grocery store, but I see it regularly now. In this ultra-liberal little university town.
And there’s no reason on earth (except one) to open carry like that here. Washington state is a “shall issue” state for concealed pistol permits, meaning that if you have no criminal record then the city or county where you reside must issue you a concealed carry permit, and that permit is honored in every other city and county in the state (certain areas notwithstanding, like bars, but even open carry is prohibited there).
What’s the one reason? To intimidate other people, I think. The sole reason to open-carry a gun is to be an asshole, because if you can open-carry and you’re worried about self protection, then you can get a concealed-carry permit and cover it up, thereby not intimidating or frightening anyone. But no, more and more I’m seeing these assholes with one (and sometimes TWO) guns strapped on, strutting around in public like we’re two blocks down the street from Boot Hill Cemetery and there is some pressing need to show what tough guys they are.
Nebraska allows open carry without a permit (schools are still supposed to be gun free). I don’t see a lot of guns visible in grocery stores or other places. Pickup trucks often have an array of rifles in the back window, and there are a lot of aggressive gun-toting bumperstickers, but so far it doesn’t seem like people are going into the local grocery store fully armed.
I wonder if that is because this is a conservative area? Most Republicans know the odds that the person they’re interacting with are fellow gun-toting, abortion-hating, liberal-bashing, praying white Republicans that they don’t see the need to worry until someone with a Hill Yes t-shirt shows their face. By that time, they’ve already left their gun in the car, and have to rely on swagger to intimidate. Just a thought…