The Gun Cabinet

Vacation started the second weekend of July. The next project to finish with the OSB was a gun cabinet. I spent one day constructing the gun cabinet and the next painting it and the tool cabinet. A couple coats of Kilz helped to seal the fumes that would otherwise become exponentially worse. A little bit of white would help brighten up the inside so it wouldn’t totally resemble a groundhog burrow.

I’m a hunter and a shooter, primarily a shooter. Early in life Dad started us out with strict training in use and safety of guns. I recall, as early as I could stand and use my arms and hands with any dexterity, operating a skeet thrower so he could shoot skeet over the garden behind the house. Other times were spent sitting beside him at a reloading bench wiping lubricant off resized brass, then trimming it to length. I was always mesmerized by the consistent and steady thwack, thwack of the knocker on the powder measure, ensuring every little granule of powder made its way into the case. He stressed consistency and exactness so that each round was the same for the best accuracy.

Dad was adamant that if you were going to hunt, it should be quick and humane. This was reinforced one day when I had a little bow and arrow shooting at a can in the back yard. Dad walked out and I asked him if he knew how to shoot it. He took the bow and arrow from my hand and with perfect form drilled the can dead center. I asked if he had ever killed anything with one. He told me one time he shot a cow they were going to butcher. It took so long for it to die that he vowed he would never do that again.

Growing up on a farm you’re not separated from your food by a grocery store and the processes that get it to the table. Whether farming or hunting, that process can still be humane. As a kid I raised chickens and ducks, each one of them a unique personality from the time they broke out of the shell. When the time came to kill them for the table or freezer, it was my responsibility. I learned the hard way not to take that meal for granted when I had to look it in the eye.

Accuracy of the gun and ammo combined with accuracy of the shooter made for a quick, humane kill. I learned to be a good shot and be responsible with each one. These days I’m most likely to shoot holes in targets. I’ll pass on more shots than not while hunting if I have a doubt about getting around to eating it. I still love guns and shooting because I was never really any good at other sports. I couldn’t run fast, couldn’t throw a ball for squat and didn’t really enjoy playing games too much. I could, however, bring all my mental and physical abilities together to focus on a spot and hit my mark. Like Kyudo, the Japanese art of archery, it is a form of zen.

I know this subject is controversial and sensitive for many people and I don’t discuss it here to argue any case or make any statements other than why it is a part of my life. A tragedy with a gun occurred in our family when I was small that completely altered the course of our lives. Suffering from bipolar depression, my mother took her own life. After a lifetime of contemplating the what, how and why, it has struck me how it correlates to my actions and present state of mind.

I have never personified objects. Likewise, I have never objectified people. My perspective on the current state of things in our world is simple but not simplistic. A virus is not a life form, though like a loaded gun and mental disorders, it deserves caution and respect for its potential. Regardless of its origins, it carries on in its progression without any regard for the personifications often attributed to it. Similarly, mental illness has been misunderstood and often mistreated throughout history. The person suffering from it may not be aware of what is happening to them, or may be in denial, or when aware, may be helpless to control it. People observing it from the outside are almost a mirror image by not seeing it, misunderstanding it, denying it and simply not knowing what to do about it. Over the years understanding mental illness has changed significantly through advances in psychology, medicine and education. Despite those advances it still exists with all the coinciding stigmas, risks and sometimes fatal results.

All this wasn’t in my mind as I built this gun cabinet. I needed a safe place to keep and manage the guns I would be using. There are inherent risks when the guns are removed from the case if not handled with due diligence. This virus, now out of the case, requires the same diligence. It has no agenda, goal or purpose in and of itself. We all have opinions about it. It has no opinion about us. It is what it is and does what it does only when it interacts with the one dynamic that activates it, us. We have been going through the natural progression of not seeing it, misunderstanding it, denying it and not knowing what to do about it. We’re hopefully on the path of fully unraveling its secrets for everyone to see and understand so it can be put back in the case.

Could something have been done differently to save my mother’s life? I’m sure it could have. All my parents are gone now, along with a lot of people who may have had those answers. The only thing left that really matters is what would I learn from it. Life is precious, and we are the dynamic factor that can have a positive, negative and sometimes fatal impact on it. People often assume I’m doing this for my wife, which is only half true. I’m doing it for my daughter too. I never want her to have to lose her mother too early in life like I did. Due diligence, understanding the risks and choosing to manage them responsibly given our current knowledge, will hopefully prevent that.

Working in medicine with a higher likelihood of contracting the virus makes me the possible loaded gun. My building is my gun case to help manage the risks. Wearing a mask and being respectful as I interact with other people makes all the difference too. I just imagine Dad looking down at me like he did years ago, telling me to check the chamber, keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction and my finger off the trigger. If not, I wouldn’t have any feeling in my butt for the next three months.