Essay 2

“So what grade are you in now?” My grandpa asks.

“I’m in college now,” I respond, we’ve had this conversation many times before my answer varying on where I was in my education.

“So what’d you want to do?”

“I want to be a veterinarian.”

“Oh. You mean with animals right?”

“That’s right.”

“You know I used to raise chinchillas. I used to keep tons of them. I’d file their teeth and clip their nails. Then I’d take them to be skinned and sell their fur.”

“I want to help animals though, you know an animal doctor.”

“Oh. Well I used to hunt deer,” Then he’d go on describing the hunt, putting his hands and arms in the formation of a gun and gesture shooting the deer. He’d also go on about gutting the deer and skinning it. Somehow all of our conversations end up like this. I can only imagine Sarah, the author of Shooting Dad, having somewhat similar conversations with her dad. I get the feeling that he had many of his own hunting stories and most certainly many gun stories. I may not have a gun obsessed gunsmith for a dad, but my grandpa comes close to it and my views on guns are very similar to Sarah Vowell’s views.

Guns are powerful, deadly, and convent weapons. All of those are reasons to like guns and to dislike them. Sarah mentions why she is able to handle a cannon, but not a gun. She says, “It’s unwieldy and impractical, just like everything else I care about. Try to rob a convenience store with this 110-pound Saturday night special; you’d still be dragging it in the door Sunday afternoon.” (439) It seems like what she doesn’t like about guns, besides the feel, is how they are used. She uses the example of robbing a convince store to show how a gun can be used wrongfully in a way that a cannon can’t be used. This makes the cannon okay for her, where as for me my dislike of guns comes from a different source, hunting.

Hunting is something that I am completely against unless it is absolutely necessary, which now a days is rare. The reason I’m against hunting is because of how I view animals. “My father heard a noise and jumped out of his chair. Grabbing a BB gun, he rushed out the front door. Standing in the yard, he started shooting at crows.” Reading that made me upset. Crows may not be the most liked animal, but they are still wonderful intelligent creatures and the reason he had for shooting it was ridiculous. He shot at it because it made a sound. I don’t think he would want to be shot at for making a noise. Making sounds is a natural part of life, so using it as an excuse isn’t acceptable. Now if an animal had been attacking him and it was life or death, then I can understand using a gun.

Due to my reason for not liking guns, cannons still aren’t my favorite either. It may not be practical to use a cannon for hunting, but with a bullet or cannon ball being shot out of it there can still be some unnecessary damage done. It could injury an unsuspecting animal and eventually kills it and all of that just because someone wanted to shot a cannon.

If you only think of it from injuring humans, or committing a crime then a gun isn’t good, but it may also be needed to be used as protection from other guns. This is where I believe Sarah and I may differ in our use of guns belief.

The other difference between us is that her problem with guns caused problems between her and her dad. My grandpa and I have also never been close. We don’t see each other very much, but another reason we never were close may be because of gun, or well the way he chose to use guns. It’s always made it hard for me to have a real meaningful conversation with him. I can image that this was the case for Sarah and her father.

Sarah and I both don’t like guns even if it is for different reasons and has affected relationships with our family members. For that reason I feel that I can relate to her.