By MIKE MOORE
Journal Times | Posted: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 12:00 am
Bullet holes clustered on the silhouette of the paper target. For a nervous novice, my aim was fairly decent.
Had I known at the time that the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle was the same kind a guy from northern Wisconsin used to kill six people last week, my hands might have shaken a tad more.
Even from the opposite end of the state, that news carried sadness, anger and confusion. Makes it that much harder to do what I set out to do: shove aside the raw, partisan emotions and reach the core of the gun debate.
At any other time that's a tough enough task, as recent events proved here. A Racine military surplus store raffled off an AK-47, raising money to outfit military snipers.
The anti-gun crowd complained about assault weapons and glorifying violence. The pro-gun crowd locked and loaded for an invisible battle over Second Amendment rights. And I scratched my head over the whole thing.
To find out why anyone would want a semiautomatic rifle, I first called Buster Bachhuber, a board member with the Wisconsin Rifle and Pistol Association. A few hunters use them, he said, but more commonly they're seen in target shooting competitions.
He's not personally a fan of the so-called "black rifles." As he sees it, though, banning "assault rifles" involves hazy distinctions.
Although their exotic look might freak people out, Bachhuber said the inner workings of those sleek rifles are similar to what hunters commonly use. He estimated a proposed Congressional assault weapon ban could knock out 60 to 70 percent of guns used for trap shooting or hunting, punishing those who "aren't out assaulting anything but some ducks and clay pigeons."
Any weapon that can galvanize one group to implement blanket restrictions and another to ante up four figures to win it, I had to see for myself. A buddy with years of shooting experience tagged along to Shooters Sports Center, an indoor range in Caledonia.
An AR-15 was the closest thing we could rent. Because it's a semiautomatic, I worked up to 10 rounds in quick succession without having to reload. The recoil was light enough that I left without bruises.
Not once did I pull the trigger in anger, and my uninformed newbie questions didn't seem to scare anybody. Guns only turn into a problem when emotions get involved.
Heck, emotions turn everything tangible into a potential problem. In the past few weeks, Racinians have reported being attacked with a table leg, a stick, a fork, a head butt and, believe it or not, a baby stroller. And, of course, they've been shot at - by handguns, not rifles.
Never fear; background checks won't become part of the silverware and furniture buying process. To defuse the slogan, people alone don't kill people any more than guns do. Unbalanced and untrained people with access to guns kill people.
Personally, the world I inhabit sits between the weapon-free, Coke-and-a-smile one and the one where everybody sleeps with one eye open.
I'll file my own trip to the range under "trying a new hobby" rather than "preserving fundamental rights." But I won't clink champagne glasses with politicians who think outlawing weapons like that means any kind of victory. Not as long as it's still legal to have emotions.
Or whatever you call that warped thing that made a man in Crandon react to what was reportedly a minor insult by reaching for a weapon he had pledged to use to protect.
Mike Moore can be reached at (262) 631-1724 or