“You’re getting killed in the comments!” It’s not a text any writer wants to receive, but I wasn’t surprised. After all, I’d just written a piece that was gently critical of America, and Free Press readers are a patriotic bunch; of course you leapt to your country’s defense.
For context: I’m British, I’d just been in an active-shooter situation in Washington, D.C., and I was reflecting on the Second Amendment. “Is it worth it letting civilians have guns? Does it really make this country more free?” I wrote. “Can you explain it to me? I want to know.”
I meant what I said. I genuinely wanted to hear from someone who believes what half the American population believes: That it’s important to protect a citizen’s right to bear arms. The whole point—and the privilege—of being a journalist is getting into the hearts and minds of people who think differently.
Which brings me back to that text I got—the one about being killed in the comments.
It was from my friend and colleague Larissa Phillips, who I’ve edited since she joined The Free Press two years ago—and who happened to be perfectly placed to answer my appeal: “Help me understand.” Because once upon a time, Larissa herself was vehemently anti-gun—and now, she’s planning to get one.
A thread that runs through a lot of Larissa’s writing here at The Free Press is how moving from bright-blue Brooklyn to a red area of upstate New York changed her perspective—on Republicans, on marriage, on America itself. In today’s essay, she writes that when she left New York City, she wouldn’t even let her kids have a water gun, but moving to a part of the country where firearms are a part of daily life, she slowly came to question her assumptions about the Americans who owned and used them.
This is the story of how she fired a bullet for the first time. —Freya Sanders
I jammed my palm right up against the grip, wrapped fingers around my firing hand, extended both arms, and squinted at the target through my glasses. With all systems in place, there was nothing left to do but pull the trigger. Bam! At a velocity of about 800 mph, the bullet shot down the barrel of the gun in my hand and seemed to instantaneously punch through the target. I checked my handiwork. A tiny hole had appeared just a couple inches south of the white circle in the middle. Not bad for my first time ever firing a pistol. I looked at my instructor. “Can I go again?”
Until very recently, I could not have imagined taking lessons on how to shoot a handgun. I have spent most of my life extremely opposed to every single type of firearm. Guns are involved in most murders; they escalate volatile situations, land hotheaded young men in prison, and kill innocent people. I grew up the child of two anti-war idealists who deplored violence, and as a suburban kid, I had little exposure to hunting, which I imagined as a pastime for drunk slobs who wanted to massacre wildlife. When I grew up and became a parent myself, I was haunted by the specter of school shootings. The Columbine High School massacre in Colorado happened just two weeks after my first child was born in 1999; I held my tiny infant against me as I took in the horror on the news.
Not long after that, I set down roots in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where the default position on guns was: They’re bad; let’s get rid of them. We wondered: What if we stopped making them? Can we hold gun manufacturers liable for gunshot deaths? What about a buy-back program like Australia did? I readily participated in these conversations, even though I was not as extreme as some of my friends, who said things like: “No guns. Ever.” I thought some people should have guns, but only highly trained, background-checked professionals. At the time, I didn’t know anyone who had a gun—and the prospect of owning one myself never crossed my mind.
But since moving from one of the most liberal places in the country to a farm in a red part of upstate New York, my views on firearms have shifted dramatically. In fact, I’m actually thinking about getting a handgun.
