Weaned from Guns by the Horror of War
By Carl Heintze
When I was 21 one of the things I wanted most was a Luger pistol. Luger pistols were much sought after in the U.S. Infantry in World War II in Europe. I'm not quite sure why that was. In part it was because they were issued to German officers as personal side arms (The American side arm was a much heavier and less attractive .45-caliber pistol.
In part, it was the way they were made--the same way they had been made during World War I, maybe the same way they are still made, for all I know.
The Luger came with a little wrench which, as I remember it, was a part of the pistol. With this little tool one could take the pistol apart and put it back together.
The Luger was, in fact, a beautiful machine, well designed. It looked and was, of course, lethal. Later, the Germans came up with a cheaper substitute which wasn't as sought after.
I never got a Luger. I did finally take a Walther police pistol, a .32-caliber weapon, from an SS trooper I captured a couple of weeks before the end of the war. It wasn't as cool as a Luger, but at least I had gotten it on my own. I hadn't traded for it or bought it, as some soldiers did.
It was a time of guns in my life. After I got home and out of the Army, I bought a used .30-caliber Mauser rifle. Then I bought a 12-gauge shotgun.
I don't know what I thought I was going to do with any of these pieces. I kept the pistol in a drawer, loaded. I went dove hunting and quail hunting with the shotgun a couple of times and shot not a single dove or quail. I fired off the rifle in the Santa Cruz Mountains at a friend's house just to show it worked and, I suppose, to remind me of the days when I had carried an M-1 rifle on my shoulder. It worked.
I polished the rifle and shotgun, cleaned them and oiled them--a part of the mystique of guns.
And then I got married and had children.
As soon as the children were old enough to toddle, I sold the pistol to a gun dealer. I gave the rifle to my brother-in-law and the shotgun to a friend.
I've never owned another gun since. I've never fired another gun or pistol since. I don't have any weapons anywhere in house. I never want to have any guns in my house.
Yet, in an odd way, I understand the fascination of pistols, rifles and shotguns. Each is a compact machine, usually beautifully designed. Each is heavy. Hefted in the hand, it has the feeling of latent power. Each is designed for delivering a bullet or a blast into a small space. Each makes a loud and, somehow, satisfying sound when it does so.
In spite of all this, I hate guns. I carried one on my shoulder for a year. I fired my M-1 approximately 125 times, in anger, during all that time and, so far as I know, I never hit anyone with any of those 125 shots. But I could have. Indeed, that was my intent.
And during all that time I never felt "right," I never felt dressed, unless I could feel my rifle, either on my shoulder or at my side. I learned the manual of arms. My rifle was my companion. It was the reason I was there. I had been ordered to carry it and fire at the enemy, and I would have, given the chance.
But I became convinced that this was not what I wanted to do. I also became convinced that guns are made only to intimidate--at the least--or to kill, at the most.
During the time I daily carried a gun wherever I went, I saw one man shot accidentally and fatally by a supposed unloaded carbine, and witnessed another near miss when another soldier picked up a pistol pointed it at the ceiling and said, "Is this loaded?" He found it was when he pulled the trigger. Fortunately, the bullet went through the roof, but didn't hit anyone.
Thus, in the current gun controversy, when children are busy shooting one another, I find it appalling that anyone with a child in the house owns a gun. I also find it unbelievable that anyone can defend an assault rifle as a weapon for sport. Assault rifles were never designed to do anything but kill people.
I also have come to believe that all guns are to be avoided. Although I understand the emotion one feels when one picks up a weapon, feels the latent power in that combination of metal, plastic and wood, I also sense a revulsion.
I know it is a personal revulsion. It's because once I tried to kill people with the gun I carried. I don't want to see any guns kill any more people.
But, alas, I know that's not the future. With 90 million weapons loose in the United States, both accidental and intentional shootings are going to take place somewhere, some day, in some school, in some liquor store robbery, by some demented husband.
I know that's going to happen. But I also know there are many things we could do to minimize this terrible love affair we have with pistols, rifles and shotguns, because of the love affair through which I passed, and for which I am truly sorry.
Carl Heintze is a frequent contributor to the Los Gatos Weekly-Times.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
