15 June 2010

Safety and Security: Twin Priorities

By Megan A. Wong

This essay is excerpted from Pop Culture versus Real America, published by the Bureau of International Information Programs. A profile of the movie Pulp Fiction is here.

The cupcake-yellow home of Malcolm and Jacque Blundell is festively decorated for fall. Homegrown pumpkins line the front steps and a string of orange and black cardboard letters wish “Happy Halloween” to passersby. The Blundells relax on a wicker couch on the porch with their small black dog, Charlotte Sophia, at their feet. From this vantage point, one sees couples pushing strollers down the street and clusters of neighborhood children exiting a school bus. The surrounding homes are inhabited by white-collar professionals: lawyers, lobbyists, and high-tech workers. The light is golden and the weather mild for mid-autumn.

The Blundells do not exactly fit the image of violent, gun-wielding thugs. Jacque (pronounced “Jackie”) is a longtime volunteer with the local animal welfare league, an organization for which she has fostered kittens in the past. Blundell works as a manager at a local software development company.

The first time Blundell held a gun was at a Boy Scout camp in Hawaii, where he spent part of his childhood. He was 12 years old and was vying for a merit badge in rifle. Blundell still recalls the thrill of shooting a gun for the first time. That was the moment when his lifelong fascination with firearms began.

After attending college on an ROTC [Reserve Officers’ Training Corps] scholarship, Blundell completed his obligatory military service with the U.S. Marine Corps over the next five years. When he got out of the Marines, he took a 15-year hiatus from firearms while he concentrated on building his career in high tech. It was not until 2004, by then fully ensconced in a career as a software developer, that Blundell once again picked up his hobby as a sport shooter.

People have different motivations for owning guns, he explains. Some are hunters who use shotguns to shoot game. Others, like Blundell and his friends, are hobbyists who shoot for sport in weekend competitions held at shooting ranges and gun clubs. At these venues, safety precautions are constantly drilled into participants. “There are people who belong to street gangs and there are criminals who have guns,” says Blundell. “There are also people like myself [Reserve Officers’ Training Corps] — a lot of us — who own guns for sport or competition or self-defense.”

There are specific times and conditions in which Blundell feels it is appropriate to discharge firearms — and plenty of occasions when it would not be responsible to do so. In the United States, gun laws vary widely from state to state (sometimes even region to region within a state). Some states enforce strict regulations on firearms (such as licensing, registration, or permits), while other states take a more “hands-off” approach to gun possession. Virginia, the state in which the Blundells live, has severe restrictions on brandishing firearms in residential areas. But the Blundells have friends who live in a rural part of the same state where the local attitude toward firearms is very different from that held by many city dwellers and suburbanites. These friends of the Blundells own 60 acres (24 hectares) of forested private land, on one section of which they built a firing range. Their sprawling rural oasis is one place where the Blundells feel it is acceptable to discharge firearms in a controlled capacity because of the size of the property. The absence of bystanders there makes it unlikely that someone could accidentally get hurt by a stray bullet.

“It’s just part of the culture,” says Blundell, referring to the permissive attitude toward gun ownership in some rural areas. Still, he observes, “there is no more or less violence there than anyplace else.” From this fact, Blundell extrapolates that it is possible to possess and use firearms in a safe manner provided that owners are educated properly and behave responsibly. While the Blundells support freedom to possess and use firearms responsibly, they take guns seriously. “You don’t play with them,” declares Blundell. “I’m either cleaning them or I’m shooting them or they’re in the safe.”

This is more than just responsible talk. At the author’s request, Blundell retrieves a pistol from his 1,000-pound (450-kilogram), refrigerator-sized black safe. He immediately opens the magazine and hands it — muzzle down — to his wife, uttering just one word: “Clear.”

It is both a question and a request. Jacque checks the pistol to make sure it is not loaded. To non-gun-owners, this may seem like an unnecessary step. But to the Blundells, safety is standard operating procedure. “It’s very important to make sure it’s unloaded before I start handling it,” says Blundell. “It’s just a precaution.”

Even if one thinks a firearm is unloaded, it still deserves the utmost respect, repeats Blundell on several occasions. “You don’t point the muzzle of any firearm, loaded or unloaded, at anything or anybody that you’re not willing to destroy,” he says. “One takes great care with handling firearms. It’s the habit of a lifetime. And I can attest that having those habits will hold you in very good stead.”

Above and beyond their personal code of safety when handling guns, the couple requested a voluntary home review from the police when Blundell rekindled his interest in sport shooting five years ago, to make certain that they were taking every precaution in storing their firearms.

Blundell believes deeply in personal freedom tempered by personal responsibility. He has no tolerance for those who handle guns irresponsibly or with the intent to commit criminal acts. “When I hear about people doing irresponsible things with firearms, I’m irritated because it makes it more difficult for the rest of us,” says Blundell. “It makes things harder for the vast majority of firearm owners who behave responsibly.”

Respect is the unmistakable theme in any conversation with the Blundells about firearms. “The penalties are very severe if you use a firearm in a crime of violence,” says Blundell. “You are allowed to defend your life. But this is not the Wild, Wild West.”

At the mention of cinema, Blundell starts in on another pet peeve of his: the laughable portrayal of firearms in films. Movies frequently have “nothing to do with reality,” he chuckles. “What I see is what’s technically wrong. They’re movies, they’re fiction. What they show you is impossible.” He cites the mismatched sound effects that show too many rounds being fired without reloading and scenes in which novice gun users somehow hit their target with no practice and no kickback.

“I hope people realize that movies were designed to be entertainment,” says Blundell. “There’s a certain amount of shock value. They’re trying to show you what they think will keep you entertained for two hours. It’s not necessarily American life.”

Megan A. Wong is a writer and editor in the Bureau of International Information Programs of the U.S. Department of State.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)