There's a saying that's attributed to Mark Twain that I never can quite let go of. "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you do, you're misinformed,” he supposedly said, though apparently, he didn't. Still, there's a truth to it that seems very Twain. Today, though, you can lump newspapers in with things like cable news.
And too many people think they're fully informed because they watch their favorite cable news channels.
But when it comes to guns, they're often very misinformed, especially about gun buyers and gun ownership. That's the point that Larz Williams, the director of operations for the gun store Shooter's Choice in Columbia, South Carolina, made in a recent op-ed.
If you only learned about America's gun owners from political debates and television coverage, you might think they were a small and increasingly isolated group. Spend a day inside a gun store and you quickly learn otherwise.
The customers who walk through our doors are men and women, first-time buyers and lifelong shooters, hunters and homeowners, retirees and young professionals. Some want a handgun for home protection. Some want a rifle for hunting or target shooting. Others simply want to exercise a constitutional right responsibly.
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The scale of American firearm ownership makes one thing clear: Critics are not talking about regulating an obscure hobby practiced at society's margins. They want to affect tens of millions of ordinary people.
Before lawmakers propose the next ban, capacity limit or sweeping restriction, they should spend less time listening to stereotypes about gun owners and more time listening to the people themselves.
Better yet, come visit a local gun store. Meet the customers. They may discover that America's gun-owning public looks a lot more like America than they expected.
Typically on cable news or any news, you'll see an older white guy at the counter, holding whatever gun, and that's just how people see it. The reality is that a wide variety of Americans are gun owners, and they own all of the things that we're told are a problem, such as standard capacity magazines and modern sporting rifles.
You'll find they come from various socioeconomic backgrounds and different professions. Some are blue-collar workers, and others are white-collar professionals. They're mechanics and doctors, construction workers and accountants. They're from just about every walk of life you care to name, perhaps other than liberal professional anti-gun activists, but even a few of them have darkened the door of a gun store and purchased a firearm.
They're not old, upper-middle-class white guys who are terrified of minorities or anything of the sort. You might see more of them in the store, but they're also more likely to have disposable income to spend on guns than many other people. That's all it means.
And even then, the physician buying his first gun might get some advice from the fast-food worker buying his third or fourth.
Guns aren't some niche thing, no matter what they try to tell you.
Guns and gun ownership are an American right, and an American tradition. It's one that should be enjoyed by those of all ethnicities, age demographics, or any other distinguishing characteristic you care to name.
Williams is absolutely correct here.