Mothers and Sons and Guns

Early last summer, my 12-year-old son asked me to buy him a BB gun. I am phobic on the subject of firearms, particularly in relation to Will. I won’t let him play at the homes of kids whose parents might have unsecured handguns. When he was little, I banned any toy that vaguely resembled a real weapon. Cap guns--which I had as a child--were out of the question.

I wasn’t as extreme as some of my friends, who rejected all toy guns--realistic or otherwise--only to be startled when their preschool boys bit pieces of breakfast toast into the shapes of .45s and began blasting away at their sisters. I allowed Will to brandish those Nerf things, which are manufactured in brightly colored, cartoonish configurations and, thus, are not in danger of being mistaken for a 9 millimeter out of the corner of anyone’s eye.

It’s not that I’m unfamiliar with firearms. As a journalist, I’ve traveled into war zones, especially during my single, pre-child years. In fact, I used to take pride at my sang-froid on those occasions when I was confronted by Kalashnikov-toting young rebels. More recently, my specialty has been reporting on gang life in East Los Angeles. In the course of writing a book on street gangs, I shot pistols with law-enforcement types at the Los Angeles Gun Club, witnessed a number of gang shootouts and found myself in the line of fire on two occasions.

It’s my very familiarity with weapons that triggers the knee-jerking. During my tenure as gang reporter, I’ve attended the funerals of 19 young men and one young woman, all kids I knew well. A few died by their own hands. Most at the hands of other kids. All from gunshot wounds. I am convinced that, in most of the cases, these kids would be alive today had firearms not been readily available. Guns don’t kill people. People with access to guns do.

So when my son suggested that I buy him a BB gun, I had--how to put it--difficulty warming to his suggestion.

Will first asked for a BB gun when he was 8. I said no with extreme prejudice. In the intervening four years, the subject came up several more times and, in each instance, I responded with the same hysterical fervor: “Absolutely not. No. Never!”

Last summer, my son asked again. “It’s not fair. I’ll even pay for it myself,” he pleaded. “The only reason you won’t let me have one is that you’ve seen too many terrible things happen!” The emotional intensity escalated as the argument continued. And there was a new tone to my son’s distress, as if more was at stake than the daily parent/child power struggle. “I am a boy,” he seemed to be saying, “and there are certain needs you are unwilling or unable to understand.”

For the record, I’m a divorced single mother. My son’s dad suffered a cerebral aneurysm three years ago and is unavailable for any kind of active fathering. So when it comes to guy-specific issues, I am often fearful I am making decisions without adequate information.

For the first time, I began to waffle on my “No BB Gun” stance. “Maybe I’ve been too extreme,” I said finally. “We’ll do some research on guns when we go up to Montana. Then we’ll make a decision.” We would be leaving for vacation in the Big Sky state in a few weeks. Surely, I reasoned, if there was any good to be found in juvenile gun ownership, Montana was the place to discover it.

The minute we got off the plane at Glacier Park International Airport, my son began devising schemes to earn the money for the BB gun he was now sure he would be allowed to purchase. He set up a stand on the fifth green at the local golf course, where he sold used balls. He offered to do extra chores. Before I knew it, Will had amassed a cool $40, hard cash.

“I think it’s time to take our research trip,” he said, and I grudgingly agreed. First stop, Snappy’s Sporting Goods, where the gun counter is the size of Wyoming. I panicked, seized with the conviction that my pro-Brady Bill/anti-NRA leanings would release some sort of pheromone alerting all nearby gun salespersons that an enemy was in their midst.

As it turned out, the man behind the counter couldn’t have been nicer. He patiently explained the difference between a BB and a pellet gun, and a BB-pellet combination. He instructed my son sternly about gun safety. “Always treat every gun as if it’s loaded. Know your target and beyond.”

Next we went to the local Kmart, where a chirpy young man of college age gave us the rundown on which guns most parents bought for their kids. Before I knew it, what had started as a reconnaissance mission had taken a sharp turn. A half-hour later, we walked out of the store, my son the proud owner of a Crossman Air Gun Model 760 Pumpmaster--plus BBs, two kinds of pellets and special protective eyeglasses.

As we stepped into the brilliant, late-day Montana sunshine, I wondered if I had lost my mind. During the 50-minute drive back to our cabin, I felt physically threatened by the gun’s presence--as if I’d allowed a live rattlesnake into the back seat. I began lecturing my son--uncontrollably. “I want you to swear to me, you’ll never, ever, ever even take this gun out of its box unless I’ve given you permission.” He swore. “I want you to swear that you’ll never, ever tell any of your friends you have the gun, unless you have my permission.” After about three more of these solicitations, he began to cry. “You make me feel terrible! You make me feel like I’m just a stupid little jerk kid you can’t trust. I hate you! I wish I’d never got this gun!”

I tried to calm him, tried to calm myself, succeeded only marginally in both endeavors. After dinner, we both read the 18-page owner’s manual cover to cover. The next day we went into the woods, where he donned the new yellow eyeglasses and shot at Coke and 7-Up cans that we set on tree stumps. As I stood nervously behind him, my son acted with remarkable precision and sobriety. “Safety on. Safety off,” he would chant, informing me of each step in the loading, pumping and firing process as he performed it. On the way back from our outing, he thanked me profusely for letting him get the gun. I felt somewhat less apprehensive, even kind of exhilarated.

In the ensuing few weeks, I compulsively confessed my BB-gun jitters to a variety of Montana men. Each responded with gun tales from their own youth--advice their fathers had given, mistakes they’d made, lessons they’d learned. “Nothing like it for teaching responsibility, discipline and respect,” said a 70-something fellow who for 40 years had offered gun-safety courses to kids. “Don’t worry,” said a burly biologist who works for Montana Fish and Wildlife. “It’s a rite of passage some boys need.”

During the first few weeks back from vacation, Will had to show the gun to every friend who came over to visit (each time with my permission and in my presence). We set up a multitude of targets in the vacant lot adjacent to our Topanga Canyon home. But after a while, Will grew bored. School started. There were other, more immediate, interests.

Most of my L.A. friends who know about the BB gun have done their best not to be judgmental, but they are in no rush to purchase one for their own sons. Certain friends I haven’t bothered to tell, for fear of their disapproval. But I have no regrets.

Raising boys for a woman alone is a tricky business. We can teach them how to be good people. But it is, by definition, impossible for us to model how to be good men. I watch some of my single-mother friends long for a male partner who leads his life with both compassion and ferocity, but these same smart women recoil at any display of aggression or ferocity from their sons. I’ve watched myself do the same at times.

So how do I communicate to a boy child that his masculine power is essential and that I trust him to use it in righteous--not harmful--ways? I know too many men who have somehow missed this lesson, their strength still a mystery to them. I know too many boys on the street who, with no one to teach them, have invented their manhood out of whole cloth, with catastrophic results.

I don’t pretend to have found the solution. Yet I’m proud of the way my son checks with me before using his gun--his manner less that of an importuning child than a young man charged with a significant and risky task. And when he built a BB trap out of cardboard boxes and old carpet scraps, then hit the center of the trap’s newly drawn target on the first try, I saw him thrill at the competency of his own hands, imagining them already as an adult’s competent hands.

There are still times when, if I could, I’d lock him in his room till he’s 30, just to protect him. But I can’t. Instead, I work daily to help him shape the tools of calm, potency and reliance on his own good judgment.

And so the gun. Sometimes the most unlikely objects become talismans.