Production for use

For those who watch the old black and white classic movies, that phrase should sound familiar.

For those that aren't familiar with it, it is from the movie His Girl Friday with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. The story is actually a comedy dealing with a newspaper man and his ex-wife who still works for him as a writer. She meets another man, plans to marry and leave the paper and the former husband just can't let go ... hilarity ensues. There was a remake of this film not so many years ago with Kathleen Turner, Burt Reynolds, and Christopher Reeves. The remake was ok, but nothing can touch the original. But, I digress.

In this film there is a subplot of a man who was listening to another man making a speech in the park about "production for use" of any and all items. The man shoots someone with a gun and the newspaper woman has a discussion with him about the speech that he heard and writes the papers story from the point of view that the gun in his hand was a case of "production for use" and having heard the speech, the man merely used the gun as it was intended when it was produced.

This phrase has been running through my head since the shootings yesterday. The idea that these types of hand guns were not produced for hunting animals for food but for hunting humans instead. I recall hearing one of the talking heads this morning even refer to the incident as if this shooter were "hunting humans" since they believed that there were particular people that he was looking for and he needed the two hour lag time because those people would not be in class, and ready targets, until that time.

I have never owned a gun nor allowed a gun in any home that I have maintained since I have lived independent of my parents. I do remember my father bringing a gun into the house during the riots of 1968. He kept it in his sock drawer. We all knew it was there and we all avoided that drawer like the plague. My father died in 1970 and I never saw that gun again. It was brought into the house as a protection piece, produced for protection use in our case, and was never, to my knowledge, ever fired.

My brother, during a bad acid trip in the late 60's, was messing around with loaded shotguns with a friend who was also tripping, and ended up shooting his friends thumb off. That gun was produced for hunting and was misused. It ended up hurting a human instead. It was not my brothers gun, it belonged to the other kid, who was also pointing a loaded gun at my brother ... while they were both drugged out of their minds. Not smart for sure.

My mother was later elected as a magistrate judge and she often had to report to the court at all hours of the night to process prisoners, often domestic dispute arrests, and she had a conceal and carry permit. She carried her gun, learned how to properly fire it, and never ever left it out where anyone could get it that shouldn't have access to it ... meaning anyone other than herself. She never used it for self defense or any other reason, but she had it until her dying day. Again, production for self defense, but never used.

Now, I wonder what most of the handguns in this country could fall under as far as their "production for use" category is concerned. Handguns can be used for target practice, but even then, often the target that one is shooting at is a silhouette of a human. Does that fact, in an of itself, support the idea that handguns are produced with the soul purpose of shooting another human being?

I know ... it's not the gun that kills, it's the hand that pulls the trigger but I can't help but wonder how so many of these guns keep ending up in hands that can't stop themselves from being the aggressor rather than the defender.

These are just random thoughts that have been rattling around in my head and I just felt the need to write them down and ask if anyone else ever considers "production for use" of these weapons.

As for me, I did some skeet shooting for a class in college. I found that slightly enjoyable, although I have never done it since. I fired a handgun once at a bottle when my mother was practicing with her gun out in the country one day. I didn't like the feeling then and I can't imagine that I would ever fire one again, even in self defense.


The other thing that keeps going through my head is the lyrics to this Elton John song ....

From this day on I own my father's gun
We dug his shallow grave beneath the sun
I laid his broken body down below the southern land
It wouldn't do to bury him where any Yankee stands

I'll take my horse and I'll ride the northern plain
To wear the colour of the greys and join the fight again
I'll not rest until I know the cause is fought and won
From this day on until I die I'll wear my father's gun

I'd like to know where the riverboat sails tonight
To New Orleans well that's just fine alright
`Cause there's fighting there and the company needs men
So slip us a rope and sail on round the bend

As soon as this is over we'll go home
To plant the seeds of justice in our bones
To watch the children growing and see the women sewing
There'll be laughter when the bells of freedom ring
---

We, as a country, have such a love hate history with guns. When it is all said and done, we need to remember that guns, like everything else, must be evaluated on the "production for use" level. Before you pick up a gun, ask yourself, what was this guns intended use when it was produced. Assault rifles and hand guns were, imho, produced to shoot another person. Perhaps if we can admit that we can start to break our bonds with these weapons and find that we need them less than the dangers they pose to us as a society.

Again, just random thoughts and it is not my intent to suggest that guns be removed from those that use them responsibly ... just that maybe there should be a few less around and available to those that don't have that switch in their heads that allows them to see just where that line of no return actually is drawn.