New owners shouldn't jump the gun

Josey1

New owners shouldn't jump the gun December 14, 2001This time of year is usually a good time to be in the firearms business -- you've got the hunting season, then Christmas.This time of this year has turned out to be a great time to be in the firearms business, in Indiana and throughout the country. This year you have not just the hunting season and Christmas. You have Sept. 11 as well. Some people, their world rocked, feel better armed."We're up 15 or 20 percent from last year," says Bob Jones of Albro Guns on the Southeastside. "It's not that people are trying to protect themselves from an invasion," Jones says, but rather from "some catastrophe -- people rioting. That's what people are telling me."Gun sales are hard to track, but a good indicator is the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Between September and the first of December, there were 6,156 checks on would-be Hoosier gun buyers, a 50 percent increase over the same period last year (all but 94 were OKd).The sharp increase suggests a lot of first-time buyers. Gary Shoemaker spots them immediately when they come into his shop in Speedway, Shoe's Gun Rack. "We've had people since September 11th who've not gone into a gun shop in their life," Shoemaker says. "They got a Clinton-Gore sticker on their car! They say, 'I never anticipated needing a gun for self-defense, but I never anticipated the United States getting attacked on its own property.' "Shoemaker and other gun dealers say they try to talk the tenderfoots into a revolver -- a .38 special, say. Revolvers, or "wheel" guns, are simpler and safer than semiautomatics.Some first-timers walk out with a revolver, which, gun dealer Mike Hilton agrees, is all they really need. But, says Hilton, who owns the two Pop Guns stores, some customers insist on semiautomatics -- "The movies and the media have made the semiautomatic more enticing. Some people -- they've got to have a semiautomatic."So, a revolver is fine for some people, but others feel better with a semiautomatic.How are you feeling now? Better? Not me. I'm no gun nut. But I'm not an anti-gun nut, either. I believe bad guys will get guns no matter what the laws are. And that while guns in the hands of good guys don't seem to do much good, if a person feels somehow better when he's packing, let him pack -- as long as he knows what he's doing.Indiana doesn't insist a gun owner know what he's doing. Only six states do. (The gun lobby is a powerful thing.) In Massachusetts, for example, before they'll give you a gun permit, you have to take an eight-hour class on gun safety and training. Is it an infringement on the Second Amendment rights of the people of Massachusetts? I suppose. The Second Amendment is the one that says you're allowed to own a gun. It doesn't say anything about taking a gun class, probably because it wasn't necessary -- Americans back then were handy with guns, handy enough to defeat the vaunted English.Gun dealers such as Shoemaker aren't against education and typically recommend that rookies take a gun safety class. But it's not mandatory.If gun owners took a class, maybe they'd get along better. Clifford Cox, who fired two shots (with his semiautomatic) at the guy stealing his car -- this happened Nov. 27 on crowded Monument Circle -- might benefit from education. So might all the new gun owners, the post-Sept. 11 crew.The more they'd know, the better I'd feel. http://www.indystar.com/article.php?TXT0F512ACA.html