MARK SMITH MORE COLUMNS Advertisement

Over the years of its Dubious Achievement Awards, Esquire magazine offered any number of bizarre particulars, from the man who put together several tons of string into a huge ball (if he attaches a tin can to each end, he can call Bulgaria, the copy read) to a gent who killed himself by drilling seven holes into his own head (he was fine after the first six...).

Occasionally, there would be a piece about a hunter who had, as one example, shot a deer and thought it was dead, then had the deer jump up and gore him to death instead. The title was always something like "Bambi 1, Hunter 0."

I had to think about that sort of thing upon reading the letters to the editor that showed up in the wake of the town board's ill-conceived adventure into gun control.

I'm not worried about people who have done their homework and know not only what they're talking about but have demonstrated the practical ability to handle a variety of weapons in a safe, sensible manner.

What bothers me are the ones who don't have the training, and likely don't have the ability, to do so. When I think of them I'm reminded of what the Duke of Wellington said upon inspecting the army he would take against Napoleon:

"I don't know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me."

What a lot of otherwise intelligent people forget is just how dangerous even the well-intentioned can be when they get a pistol or rifle in their hands and find themselves in a position to use them.

Even the well-trained aren't always to be trusted.

During the Vietnam War, there were several occasions when otherwise sensible people did remarkably dumb things.

My platoon sergeant, no less, goofed one day and let go a burst of 20 on full automatic. Even more amazing, no one was hurt.

One assistant gunner cleaned his .45 pistol, carefully checked the action, slid in a fresh clip and then, without thinking, racked the slide and pulled the trigger. He went home with a neat hole above and below his right kneecap.

(A year and a half later, another man pulled the same recruit stunt, plugging a .45-caliber slug into the top of his own foot. We threw him aboard the chopper I was on, and I tried to comfort him, saying, "Hey, man, you're cool, this'll get you home." He snapped back angrily, "I was supposed to be on my way home tomorrow!")

Another guy was idly cleaning his rifle at a place called L.Z. Ollie and did much the same thing, only this time the bullet speared a guy across the bunker and killed him.

One night I was getting ready to go out on listening post and practiced my "quick draw" with a grenade launcher -- snap it shut, slip off the safety and then fire it. Only the last action should have been withheld.

Instead, a high-explosive round went right between two of the rifleman and buried itself (harmlessly -- it hadn't had time to arm) in the bunker wall.

Talk about stupid.

All us were reasonably well-trained. But they hurt themselves or killed someone else, or came close to doing so, with a gun.

This is what I don't ever hear from the NRA or other gun owners: How do you decide whether someone has any business possessing, much less using, a gun?

* * *

Here and there one will read the old wheeze about gun control -- that if Germans hadn't had their guns seized by the Nazis, well, who knows what good might have come about?

Which really is a lot of historical nonsense.

What the writers of such a canard forget is that the Germans, by a vast majority, supported Hitler and the Nazis. The active opposition -- that is, those who tried to reach a point where they actually expressed themselves -- was tiny, fragmentary and remarkably ineffective.

The suggestion that the Germans might have rebelled but were prevented by Hitler's laws is just plain silly. There is no evidence that any sizeable number of Germans was interested in going up against the army and the Waffen-SS with rifles and shotguns, and in fact, the Weimar Republic instituted firearms registration in 1928 in an effort to control the private armies, or freikorps, that were part of the post-World War I environment.

It was already in place when the Nazis came to power.

* * *

Also thrown into the mix is the Texas Tower sniper episode in 1966.

Yes, it is true that, in a state with lots of folks owning guns, civilians got their own hardware and opened fire on Charles Whitman's position in the tower.

Not one so much as scratched him, and while they threw a lot of lead at Whitman, he was able to kill at least one more victim.

Cops eventually made their way up to Whitman's position, had to dodge some of the completely uncoordinated firepower directed upon the location, and blew Whitman away. No civilian ever so much as touched him.

And that was after Whitman had killed or mortally wounded 17 men and women and wounded dozens more.