Truth be told, I wasn’t actually given the black polymer 9mm semiautomatic pistol, which sells for about $500 in any respectable gun shop. If the fine people at Glock are to be believed, I won it.
I should explain (if only because the ATF tends to monitor Web traffic). For about 100 years, America’s gunmakers had nothing to do with the news media, and they liked it that way. They had no use for the left-leaning reporters who didn’t own guns and who, beginning in the 1960s, betrayed a clear preference for gun control. But then came the wave of litigation against the industry and a series of high-profile school shootings. The gunmakers got nervous. Their survival, they decided, might just depend on making people understand that they were not rubbing their hands together gleefully in some darkened back room, trying to figure out how to market more guns to criminals.
So the gun industry chiefs started making TV ads, giving interviews and handing out safety locks. But that wasn’t enough. It is an article of faith among gunmakers that anyone who actually gets to shoot a gun for sport will be so enthralled that he (or she) will want to run home and buy several of them. The real problem, this thinking goes, is that not enough children are learning to handle guns these days, and so they grow up with the wrong image of firearms in general. Somehow the gunmakers had to show reporters that guns were fun.
Thus was born what the gun industry informally calls “Media Weekend.” Beginning about 18 months ago, the gunmakers started inviting groups of journalists who cover gun-related issues to remote sites in North Carolina and California to get to know guns-and, more important, the people who love them. The industry brings in championship-caliber target shooters who are legends in the gun world, as well as former military and police officers to provide individual training. The programs are assembled by Michael Bane, a Colorado-based freelance writer, who told me that he’s trying to bridge a chasm of misunderstanding. “The gun culture just hates the media,” he admitted, shouting to be heard through my protective earmuffs. “We’re trying to demystify guns and the shooting sports for all of you. But just as important, we’re trying to demystify all of you for the people who love guns.”
Thursday’s session at the Fairfax Rod and Gun Club in northern Virginia, where Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is a member, was the sixth such event. (“Media Weekend” became “Media Day” after the gun crowd realized that reporters are looking for ways to get out of work, not to give up their weekend.) The eight or so journalists who came-they included a pair of NBC news producers and the editorial-page editor of The Washington Times-arrived to boxes of donuts and a pile of giveaways; Smith & Wesson alone provided tote bags, flashlights, baseball caps and space-age coffee thermoses. Free publications included a writer’s guide to gun terms, a pamphlet on environmentally correct bullets and a Glock buyer’s guide. Then it was time to shoot.
Walt Rauch, a former Secret Service agent who now writes about guns and ammo, was my teacher. Walt went through what must have been, for him, a pathetically basic lesson: stand on the balls of your feet, squeeze the trigger softly, don’t let your finger wave “bye-bye” to the trigger after you’re done. Pushed gently for some deeper tricks of his trade-Walt hunted fugitives for years-he taught a few of us how to take someone else’s gun away without exerting any more force than it takes to drink a cup of coffee and how to take down an adversary by putting an index finger under his nose.
Then we took in some amazing demonstrations from several of the world finest sport shooters. “This is our golf ball,” said Dave Arnold, the club’s rangemaster. “That’s all it is. It’s our golf ball or tennis racket. It’s what we love to do.” Our hosts clearly believed we would love it, too. Bane told the story of a journalist at a previous media day who went home bent on buying a pistol and ended up losing his girlfriend as a result.
The day culminated in a shooting competition. One by one, the reporters picked up a Glock pistol and fired at four cardboard bull’s-eyes and three metal statues. (The statues, known as “pepper-poppers,” are supposedly shaped like big keyholes, although they look suspiciously like human figures.) As I approached the shooting position, Chris Edwards looked me over. Chris is a former deputy sheriff and rangemaster who now runs law-enforcement training programs and shooting competitions for Glock. We’ve known each other for a while now, and suddenly I understood why he was so determined to get me to one of these media sessions. Every time I talk to Chris or his fellow execs, I’ve got a notebook open, and I’m asking difficult questions. Now I was on his turf and feeling incredibly pressured in a venue that was completely foreign to me. This must be how he feels every time he picks up the phone to find me on the other end.
“Now, you’re a lot younger than them, and in better shape,” he told me quietly, glancing toward my competition. “Just hold the gun steady.”
I took his advice. It’s true, none of my opponents looked like Sean Connery in “Goldfinger.” And, in fairness, I should mention that Stephen Hunter, the novelist and Washington Post movie critic, far surpassed my skills but had graciously disqualified himself because he’s a longtime shooter. But my score was the next best, or so the referees insisted, brandishing the score sheets as proof. They could have been printed in Urdu for all I know about target shooting. But I was proclaimed the winner, and for this I was awarded a shiny new Glock pistol.
Naturally, I couldn’t accept the gun, since NEWSWEEK has sensible rules about expensive gifts and since I live in the District of Columbia, which bans handguns anyway. I immediately donated the pistol back to Glock, which donated it to a local gun shop. I told my instructors that I was tempted to take the gun, because I had visions of sitting in front of my editors, mindlessly polishing the black polymer finish while I asked for a few more lines of space for my latest story. “We didn’t teach you that,” said Kay Miculek, one of the target shooters.
She hadn’t, of course-and it was a telling point. Like most people, I often think of guns and gun fanatics in terms of the crimes I’ve covered and the movies I’ve seen. A day’s introduction to the shooting sports hadn’t quite convinced me that a Glock was just another kind of golf ball. “I hope you all come away from this feeling like most of us in ’the gun culture’ are very safe and fairly normal,” said Chris Edwards, as we packed up our goggles and headed off. It was a modest ambition. I hoped he’d learned the same about us.
