Whenever I see the New York Times has published anything having to do with the Second Amendment, I cant help but indulge in a little preemptive eye-rolling. What stupidity am I about to read, and is it worth writing about here at Bearing Arms?
Every now and then I'm actually surprised by what I read, and that was definitely the case with a column by Reginald Dwayne Betts entitled "A Gun Derailed My Childhood. As an Adult, I found Relief at the Range."
Betts was sentenced to nine years in state prison in Virginia for committing an armed robbery at the age of 16. Betts doesn't try to blame society for his bad decisions. Instead, he writes that he "started experimenting with disaster" about the time he entered high school in 1996; attempting to sell drugs, driving around in a stolen car, and ultimately, participating in an armed robbery in a shopping mall parking garage after driving to northern Virginia from his home in the D.C. suburbs of Maryland.
Betts was quickly caught, and almost as quickly sentenced to nearly a decade behind bars.
With good time, I came home a little over eight years later. Still, I understood that my new identity would always threaten to erase any other role I desired to inhabit. Though my crime did not result in anyone’s death or injury, I worried my conviction meant that people would always assume me to be a violent person. In my heart, I came to believe that I was a violent person.
The self-doubt and self-loathing persisted, even as Betts earned his bachelor's degree, became an award-winning poet and published author of an acclaimed memoir. He graduated from Yale Law School, and heard the commencement speaker at his graduation detail his story.
Listening, I became uncomfortable. I looked down into my hands, worried that my friends and their families would resent my being singled out for praise, or reduce the praise to my prison sentence. But when I looked up, my entire class was standing, circling me with applause.
Even with that applause and the accolades that came with starting the non-profit Freedom Reads, which creates libraries behind bars, Betts writes that "I knew I was still a felon, with all the assumptions of violence that entails."
Somehow, all of my achievements were not enough. I knew it was paradoxical, but I found myself fixated on wanting my gun rights back. Maybe I imagined that being given permission to carry a firearm would mean I was no longer someone to be feared. Perhaps that would banish the feeling of shame that had smothered my life for so long.
Betts went through the process of having his gun rights restored in Virginia, which isn't a quick or easy thing to do. But by 2023, Betts was able to walk into the NRA Range in Fairfax, Virginia and get a lesson on basic gun handling and shooting from attorney George Lyon, who was one of the original plaintiffs in the Heller case.
I won't share much more of Betts' story, since you should really read his firsthand account. I was incredibly impressed by what he had to say, though, including the last lines of his piece for the Times.
At the range, I could master the simple skill of hitting a bull’s-eye, rather than letting my overwhelming fear of guns master me. It was a relief — cathartic and strangely bereft of violence.
In my 20+ years of covering Second Amendment issues, I've heard similar statements from victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, from people who grew up without any knowledge or training with firearms, and from those who simply realized they wanted to learn how to safely and responsibly exercise their Second Amendment rights later in life.
Owning a gun isn't for everyone, though it's a right that's available to most of us. Betts' bad decision as a teen foreclosed exercising that right for decades, but I'm pleased that he has regained his ability to legally possess a firearm and is sharing his experience with an audience that, let's face it, is largely happy to deny all of us that fundamental civil liberty. I'm curious what the reaction to his essay has been, and I've invited him to join me on an upcoming Bearing Arms' Cam & Company to talk about what he wrote and how its been received among the largely pro-gun control readers of the New York Times.
Editor’s Note: President Trump and the DOJ will soon be rolling out a new process allowing more felons to regain their Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.
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