Op-Comic: What I learned about guns when I moved to rural America

Two people shooting a gun and falling from the kickback.

By Navied Mahdavian

Sept. 12, 2023 3 AM PT

Soon after I moved to (very) rural Idaho from the Bay Area, my "suggested friends" on Facebook began to change.

It's environmental logic. With 4,500 people and the nearest city over an hour away, you use your resources or truck in food.

We owned a shotgun. We saw it as a fun novelty, to shoot when people visited so we could give them the "Idaho experience."

People express fear of cities because of perceived gun violence. I can't go into a theater after Aurora. It's a city problem.

Studies show rural areas had a 37% higher rate of firearm deaths than cities, by suicide. We heard the neighbor's suicide.

Three years later, I tried having a new perspective. I learned from talking with hunters and that horrible shot in the night.

My own perspective changed too. As the "Idaho experience" became real for me, the shotgun stayed in the closet.

Navied Mahdavian is a cartoonist and writer. He is a contributor to the New Yorker and author of the graphic memoir “This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America.”

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