Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
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LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 7.15 31 Te story of my life sits on the seat beside me, or at least my life at this moment. I am driving through downtown Louisville on the last Tursday in April with two Kroger plastic bags riding shotgun. One holds a revolver and 100 bullets. Te other holds bras. Te incon- gruity strikes me as funny. A gun. And bras. What two items do not go together? A gun and bras. What two items would I be dismayed to have someone discover on my passenger seat? A gun and bras. Te bras are going back to the store. Te gun? Tat's another story. Te guy looks like a shoe salesman: your average everything. Not too tall, not too ft, a gentle swell of tummy beneath his short-sleeve shirt. I see his brown eyes through his spectacles and feel my shoul- ders relax. I have been wandering the aisles of this market looking at everything but what's for sale, too intimidated to start a conversation with the grim and silent salesmen, a few with signs that pre-insult potential buyers: "My prices are proportional to your attitude." But this man with the red-brown hair puts me at ease. Finally, I'm ready to do business. "Now," he begins, "is this a gun you'd want to carry in your purse? Or would you want it for the home?" "Oh, I don't think I'm the gun-carrying type." "For home protection then." "Yeah." I guess. I haven't thought it through. Te gun dealer shakes his head at the handgun. "Now," he says, "a .22 is a nice small size, and that's why a lot of ladies like it. And they like it because it fts in a handbag. But if you have an intruder in your home, you want a gun that will stop them. A .22 will kill them, eventually. But it's going to make them mad frst. You need a gun that will stop someone the frst time." I nod along, appreciating the logic. And then it hits me. We are standing in the Kentucky Exposition Center at the Fairgrounds. People all around us can hear everything we say. And we are discussing killing as calmly as we might talk about new carpeting. I miss the dealer's next sentence as I absorb this. Why else does one buy a handgun? I'm not looking at hunting rifes here but a weapon precision-crafted to end a human life. Yes, I could kill someone in my car, driving recklessly, driving drunk. I could kill someone with a power tool if I had the stomach for it. I could stab them with my favorite chef 's knife. But a car, a power tool, a knife — those things have another primary function. What other function does a gun have? Another use dawns on me: target shooting. So that's what I say. I'm not going to kill anyone. I'm going to aim at a target, like people who play darts in the pub. A little more conversation and I move on, fortifed by my encounter. A few aisles later, I kneel to tie my tennis shoe and hear a voice above me: "You know, I'll sell you a gun. You don't have to pray for it." I look up and see a slender gent with wavy gray hair, glasses and a light dusting of age spots. From the gun-cov- ered table I try a revolver, a good choice for ladies, he tells me. (All the gun people, and I mean ALL the gun people I meet, say "ladies," never "women.") Buoyed by this easy conversa- tion, I move on, ready for the next one. I marvel over a pair of revolvers, one pink, one baby-blue. Moments later I gaze at a bright magenta pistol. It seems silly, like paint- ing a smiley face on a nuclear weapons facility. But the guy behind the table tells me this gun is handled more often any other weapon he sells. "I'm surprised I haven't sold it yet," he says. I learn that some guns require too much efort to pull back the slide — a piece of metal atop semi-automatic pistols that brings a bullet into the chamber for fring. Many guns are too large for my small hands. Some triggers ofer too much resistance. Some guns feel unnatu- rally wrong, like holding hands with a manne- quin; I put them down quickly. But some guns feel instantly comfortable, with slides that move with relative ease. It's astonishing: After just 40 minutes of shopping, I am developing standards. I pick up a handsome little Ruger LCR revolver with a laser-aiming system. It fts my hand perfectly. Te trigger responds smooth- ly, with just the right amount of resistance. And the laser-aiming thingy is ingenious. I want this gun. I astonish myself. What am I thinking? I am from a world where accidents happen. My husband's half-brother was killed at 14 by a friend playing with a gun. A guy I knew from my hometown killed his best friend, mistaking him for an intruder. A boy who lived across the street from me when I was growing up came home from school one day and blew his brains out with his father's hand- gun. Yet as my weeks of gun-culture research continue, something happens. I spend hours mulling over guns, trying them out, making comparisons, resisting the allure of guns more powerful, more impressive, more expensive. Almost against my will, I move toward the power of the gun. And I do not walk alone. Louisville is awash in guns. A little Inter- net sleuthing reveals more than 70 gun retailers within 20 miles of downtown. Data from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives show that Jeferson County, population 760,000, is home to 122 federally licensed gun dealers. Compare that with Tennessee's Davidson County (Nashville), with 668,000 people, and Indiana's Marion County (Indianapolis), with 934,000. David- son hosts 72 federally licensed frearms dealers, Marion 75. We win. Next year, the National Rife Association's annual meeting will be in Louisville, clearly right where it belongs. Online gun sales expand buying opportu- nities dramatically. Tere are eBay-type online gun auctions, Craigslist-style websites for buy- ing and selling guns, and big retailers that will ship guns all over the country. One Louisville gun store owner tells me it's the Internet, not local competition, that worries her. At evidence is a city that's arming itself, in a state that's arming itself, in a nation that's arming itself. If you harbor fond hope of out- lawing guns in America, let it die here. Tat ship has sailed and sunk in a hail of bullets. Where would you even begin? A 2007 Small Arms Survey — which may be ancient history when it comes to America's gun-buying habits — showed that the United States was the most heavily armed populace in the world, with 90 civilian-owned frearms for every 100 citizens. (Some studies put this number as 101.5 guns per 100 people.) No. 2 in this weap- ons-per-capita arms race? Te Gulf State of Yemen, which the Small Arms Survey authors called "one of the most heavily armed and most violent societies on earth," with 61 guns per 100 people. Te survey found that the United States had the world's greatest number of civilian-owned guns: 270 million. No. 2 was India, with 46 million civilian-owned frearms, or three guns for every 100 people. In case you were wondering: In 2007, there were 650 mil- lion civilian-held frearms in the world. More than a third of those were in the United States. All this gun-buying has done nothing to satisfy our hunger for frepower. If anything, we've only grown more ravenous, and nothing sets of gun craving like the hint that supply might be interrupted. Misty Van Fleet has blond hair, a perfect French manicure and a 9 mm Springfeld XD(M) on her right hip. If you see her in Louisville, or Indiana, where she lives, there's a chance that hidden somewhere on her person will be a small handgun. Te day we meet, her concealed-carry weapon is pink. "I have them in all the colors," Van Fleet says. Gun manu- Opposite page: While working on this story, the author purchased this revolver: a Taurus Ultra-Lite .38 Special.