Having the good sense not to be a quick draw

Maybe it was supposed to be a joke when NBA player Gilbert Arenas displayed a gun in the team locker room last month to goose a teammate into paying a gambling debt. But the Washington, D.C., authorities apparently don’t share his sense of humor.

On Friday, Arenas -- who grew up in Los Angeles, graduated from Van Nuys’ Grant High and was a three-time NBA All-Star with the Washington Wizards -- pleaded guilty in D.C. Superior Court to a felony count of carrying a pistol without a license.

Actually, it was four pistols.

According to prosecutors, Arenas carried the guns to the arena and laid them out in front of a teammate’s locker -- a guy he had earlier threatened to shoot during an argument over a card game on the team plane.

It seems astoundingly stupid to me -- even for a self-described goofball like Arenas.

I remember watching him play in high school, an exuberant kid with Kobe-like talent and Magic-like charm.

Now he’s just the latest on a too-long list of rich and talented athletes busted for carrying illegal weapons. Like NFL star Plaxico Burress, whose gun slipped down his pants and went off in a Manhattan nightclub, leaving him with a hole in his thigh and a two-year prison term.

What is it, I wondered, about pro athletes and guns?

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Arenas is in good company. Almost half of the men in this country own guns, and 40% of Americans live with someone who does.

I was one of those growing up. My father owned a barbershop in a tough part of town and carried a gun in his satchel to guard his cash. I’d see him tuck it under his mattress at night, but I knew better than to ever touch it.

Still, I was surprised by the stats. There are an estimated 200 million privately owned firearms in this country, and according to a Gallup poll, three in 10 Americans own at least one gun.

That means some of my friends are harboring guns. They just don’t pull them out when I owe them money.

I wanted to know who these gun owners are, so I posed the question online last week. I heard from almost 200; their thoughtful responses make Arenas’ quick-draw mentality seem even more like lunacy.

Some have owned guns all their lives; they learned to hunt and shoot as they learned to read and write. Others acquired firearms only after military service or a brush with crime.

What I heard most was simple and straightforward: I own a gun because I can. The word “equalizer” came up again and again -- a sense that the world is awash with crazies and we can’t count on cops to save “us” from “them.”

I heard from collectors, who cataloged their weapons in meticulous detail. And from readers like Hiroteo, whose lone gun was a gift from his father, a “refugee during the Vietnam War . . . it’s material proof of his struggle and desire to live.”

For others, guns are more prosaic, like a golf club or a bowling ball. Target shooting is a way to unwind, with a thrill not unlike rolling a strike or hitting a hole-in-one. “Shooting gets me away from computers,” Bruce said. “The mechanics of a gun are about as simple as you can get.”

I heard from several women, who said hours at the target range improved their confidence, concentration and coordination. But mostly I heard from guys, like LAPD Mike, who owned up to the adrenaline rush. The “element of danger and challenge . . . seals our attraction,” he wrote. “You have to have some of what they used to call ‘moxie’ to join the club.”

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I’m not sure I’m the moxie type.

There have been times I wished for an equalizer, when I was home alone with my daughters and heard a scary noise in the middle of the night. So last week I visited the LAPD firing range to see if I could summon the sort of moxie that makes crack shots out of women and bonds men to their guns.

LAPD firearms instructor Tim Bedford gave me ear protection, goggles and two pistols: a black 9-millimeter Beretta and a .45-caliber Smith & Wesson. He ran me through the safety basics.

I squeezed the trigger and the gun went off. I felt a rush, my heart sped up and I experienced a sudden romantic attraction to my Smith & Wesson, with its smooth black handle and gleaming silver barrel.

My first shot with that gun hit the cardboard, completely missing the target, which bore the image of a man’s torso and head. But the second one landed in the middle of his chest.

I probably would have killed the man, Bedford said.

Just like that, the romance was done.

That’s the part gun-toters like Arenas don’t consider. I imagine they see guns not as tools of death but as symbols of authority and power. Because “in an argument, a gun is the ultimate decider,” as Lt. Dana Berns put it. “Pull a gun, King’s X. Game over.”

Arenas said he never intended to fire, that all four of his guns were unloaded.

But the fellow he was threatening had a gun of his own. And, according to prosecutors, that player threw Arenas’ gun across the floor, then drew his own and chambered a round.

Thank goodness sanity prevailed or we might be writing about Arenas’ funeral, not a possible prison term.

And I hope firearm safety training is part of his deal. Because though I still don’t understand gun lust, my short stint on the shooting range taught me this much:

There is something thrilling about holding a gun. It’s not hard to luck up and get off a good shot. Firing real bullets is real dangerous.

This is real life, not a Halo game.

sandy.banks@latimes.com