Not Only Misguided, But Troubling

I really do not have a firm opinion on gun control, gun use, and gun ownership.  I think that bromides such as “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people” and “If we make guns illegal, then only criminals will have guns,” like most if not all bromides, are overly reductionist and simplistic.  I also think that hard line stances such as that vocalized recently by the National Rifle Association that seem unwilling even to consider and dialogue with different points of view don’t do much good.  On the other hand, I very much see room in that dialogue for some of the concerns vocalized by the most ardent supporters of the most expansive forms of gun rights.  There is at least something worth considering in the idea that if government agencies and administrations have access to particular weapons while citizens do not, then there is potential for violent oppression.  Also, while I think there are reasons to consider such things as mental health as conditions for gun ownership, there are important questions to ask about who gets to declare someone mentally healthy, how people get declared mentally unhealthy, and how the power to make such determinations might be abused.  One can, for instance, look at histories of male institutions’ treatment of women to see how declaring individuals mentally unfit has been used as a means of oppression.

I also think there is, as with anything in democracy, a need for recognition of a multiplicity of points of views on what guns mean.  I see guns as a means of injuring and/or killing others.  Such action might be justified at times in instances of defense, but it remains such action.  That said, I have to recognize that others might find additional meaning in guns, and democracy would ask of me not to dismiss those other meanings, even if they are not the meanings I would make.

So, I think I can understand and accept why people would advocate for broad and unrestrictive gun rights.  But then, when I see things like this “Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children” Facebook page (you have to login after clicking on that link or already be logged in), I think I am rightfully troubled, and I can understand why other groups would want to restrict rights to own guns and other weapons, especially for many of the folks expressing themselves on that “Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children” Facebook page.  Here’s why:

When I see this Facebook page, I do see all kinds of accounts, images, slogans, and comments advocating broad and unrestrictive gun rights.  However, many other accounts, images, slogans, and comments on this page offer some quite disturbing additional sentiments as well.  There seems here to be a real lack of interest in understanding what racism is, how racism works, and how we might seriously reflect on and work to eliminate racism.  Indeed, some things that appear on this page are overtly racist.  Additionally, there is clear expression of demeaning stereotypes and incredibly simplistic overgeneralizations of Muslims and Islam on this page.  Latino/a immigrants face similar treatment on the page.  The page also includes very anti-democratic and ahistorical sentiments about how everyone in the U.S. should speak English.  Meanwhile, many sentiments demand deference to military service and authority while openly mocking other forms that national service and authority might take, as if shows of force and violence are the only legitimate ways of protecting and serving.

When I see all of that stuff, I can very much understand why folks would want to keep guns away from such people.  Last winter, Wayne LaPierre of the NRA declared that it is “good guys with guns” who stop “bad guys with guns,” and that seems to correspond with the sentiments offered on this Facebook page.  Yet, when I look at the page, I see a lot of folks who are not “good guys” for the reasons I have outlined in the previous paragraph.

The overused Spider-man line is that “with great power comes great responsibility,” but it very much appears to apply here.  If you want to advocate for broad and expansive gun rights, there would seem also to be need to show that those rights will be used responsibly, reflectively, and thoughtfully, with a willingness to think about and seek to understand the complexity of your relationships with other people and other perspectives.  Democracy may very well involve freedom to own guns, but it also means the willingness to work to listen to and understand the other folks with whom one shares that democracy, even when their religions, backgrounds, and viewpoints differ from yours.

I want very much to include the folks expressing themselves through that “Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children” Facebook page in dialogue on how as a society we treat and/or legislate guns, but when I see what else is being expressed on the page, I’m not sure how to include them because there doesn’t appear to be the necessary reciprocation of inclusion.  So, then I think I could ignore these folks.  After all, there are ardent supporters of expansive gun rights who do seem willing to enter into legitimate and considerate discussion with other perspectives.  And I do think that the very hardline folks expressing themselves in such problematic ways at this “Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children” page are outnumbered significantly by more reflective folks of all sorts of positions.  Yet even that choice concerns me, and it does so because those folks on that “Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children” page seem to think that they are “good guys”—that their causes are right and that they have the right to defend themselves and their perspectives with their weapons.  When they’re combining their support of unrestricted gun rights in the name of defense with the articulation of the kinds of racist, anti-Muslim, Anglocentric stuff that I also see on that “Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children” page, I think I should be worried about how those folks will use their weapons and whom they will use them against.  And feeling like they are being ignored seems like it could fuel their fire, as they would insist that they must rebel and overthrow what they see as tyranny, even as they are unwilling to examine the forms of tyranny that they themselves espouse.

Think I’m overreacting to what I see on this Facebook page?  I hope you’re right.  Again, I want even the most ardent supporters of unrestricted gun rights to be involved in dialogue about guns and other weapons.  But go and look at some of the comments on the webpage about what folks expressing themselves there want to do to Muslims, Arabs, “illegal immigrants,” and folks who don’t speak English.  It is, to put it mildly, seriously misguided.  It is also quite troubling.

Oh Yeah ... Well, My Dad Can Hit a 1 Iron!

Every year, the final round of the U.S. Open men’s golf tournament is played on Father’s Day, and every year I roll my eyes when television announcers for the event make reference to how fitting it is or would be for someone to win because of some connection of that golfer to fatherhood.  I roll my eyes because it’s typically offered with a tone of serendipity even though it’s not serendipitous at all because the tournament’s final round is held on Father’s Day every year.  Yet, this year as I watch coverage of the event as I usually do, I’m recognizing a Father’s Day connection of my own that’s not so planned.

 

This year’s tournament is held at the Merion Golf Club, just outside of Philadelphia, and coverage of the event has featured, as coverage always does, pieces that discuss the history of the course that is hosting the tournament.  For Merion, the 1950 U.S. Open that it hosted figures prominently in course history.  Ben Hogan won the event less than a year and a half after a horrific automobile accident that almost killed him and that left doctors suggesting that Hogan might never play golf again.  Hogan’s shot with a 1 iron on the last hole of the championship became one of golf’s iconic shots—so iconic that a plaque on the golf course commemorates the shot.  In coverage of the event today, NBC ran a piece that looks at that shot and at the legacy of the club that Hogan used—a 1 iron.

 

As NBC’s piece noted, 1 iron clubs are difficult to find, and they’re difficult to find because most golfers struggle to use them.  One of golf’s all-time greats, Lee Trevino, is quoted, after being hit by lightning on a course once, as saying that next time he played during a storm he would just hold up a 1 iron because “even God can’t hit a 1 iron.”  Yet, Ben Hogan could hit a 1 iron, and that’s just one thing that contributes to Hogan’s legacy.  Hogan is tied with Gary Player for fourth on the list of most men’s major championships won, with nine.  (Jack Nicklaus has 18, Tiger Woods has 14, and Walter Hagen has 11.)  He’s one of only five players (with Nicklaus, Player, Woods, and Gene Sarazen) to win each of golf’s four major championships—the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open, and the PGA Championship—at least once.  And he did that having only played the British Open once – in 1953, when he won it.  He also won the Masters and the U.S. Open that year, and he perhaps would have become the only golfer to win all four majors in one year, but because of overlap with the British Open at that time, he couldn’t play in the PGA Championship.

 

As much as Hogan is known for these career achievements, he’s also well known for his work ethic.  That work ethic involves accounts of the calluses that formed on his hands from so much practice, stories of golfers awoken in hotel rooms in the wee hours of the morning by the sound of Hogan practicing in the room next door, and the legend of how Hogan could tell you on which groove on a golf club he had hit a ball during a stroke.  That dedicated work ethic has led me to admire Hogan perhaps more than any other golfer.  I developed that admiration shortly after Hogan’s death in 1997 when, after hearing reports about him, I read Curt Sampson’s biography of Hogan, which continues to sit on my bookshelf in my office.  Though I have to give a nod to Nicklaus’ achievements, and though Woods and Hagen have also more majors, I’d likely make Hogan my choice as the best male golfer ever.  So, when stories of Hogan’s 1 iron in 1950 accompany the return of the U.S. Open to Merion, they resonate intensely with my golf fandom, and I owe that to my dad.

 

My dad has been a routine golfer for over 40 years.  He played for a while on the Suffolk County Community College team in the early 1970s, and he continues to play golf to this day, including a round this very weekend with my brother.  Though I don’t play very often, I really enjoy golf, and I watch it regularly on television.  I rarely miss watching the U.S. Open or the British Open, and I enjoy having weekly tournaments on my television in the background as I work on other things.

 

In the mid-1990s, around the same time that I developed my interested in Hogan, my dad gave me his old clubs, and while a graduate student at Michigan State University, I went through the period of perhaps the most golfing I had done in my life.  Mind you, this wasn’t anywhere near what avid golfers do, but it was more of a commitment than at any other time in my life.

 

A number of years later, after I had moved to Arizona, my dad came to visit, and on his visit he asked if he could have one of his clubs back.  It was a Ping 1 iron that had served him well over the years and that he missed having in his contemporary bag.  Since I wasn’t golfing all that much—though more than I do now—I gladly returned it to him, and he was happy to have it back.

 

Unfortunately, he hadn’t even had it back for a couple of days when he accidentally left it on the ground at a hole while playing a course in Arizona.  When he went back to look for it, he couldn’t find it.  His wonderful 1 iron was now irretrievably gone.

 

A few years later, my wife and I found a reasonable price on eBay for a Ping 1 iron like the one my dad had had, and we gave it to him for Christmas that year.  It’s probably one of the best gifts I’ve ever given my dad, and he still uses it today.

 

So, as I watch the U.S Open at Merion Golf Club on this Father’s Day, I’m reminded of my dad.  My dad is largely responsible for the love of golf that has me watching today.  And just like Ben Hogan did at the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open at Merion less than two months before my dad was born, my dad can hit a 1 iron.