My therapist suggested I nurture and continue explore the dark and foreign world of guns - she said it could grow my anima, my feminine side. I did. And I will. My roots are Swedish - so I could dissect America and it's schizophrenic love-affair with guns, go on and on about its violent history, earned freedom and rights, the wrap it up in a politically correct post Vietnam para-military culture-thesis. But I wont. What I am really interested in is my own fascination with guns - not others. Break down into parts my own enchantment with things that go bang! I want anatomized answers that cut deeper than contemporary sociology. I need something that will clean out the complex intertextuality between archetypal warrior needs, masculine icons, sex, destruction and video-games. And I don't for a minute give credence to the belief that shooting is related to other past times such as tennis, cars or computers.
Continental Sportsman Shooting Range is located 15 minutes outside Seattle, a crash-landed barrack that lays passively still like a stranded tortoise in a ill maintained parkinglot. Opening hours from 9 till 11, 7 days a week. Usually rather empty. I love the place. The building has been around since the 50's - one of the range masters said he used to go there as a kid to buy used 501 Levi's. Same kids are probably here today. Open the door by the ovefilled barrel ash-tray, walk through Bulls Eye Cafe' with its small round tables and western style chairs. A TV is on in the back ground - yakity, yakity about true crime - I can hear sirens and people crying. Pass all that and save the burger for later, take a right before you hit the pro-shop and walk straight up to big mama Marla and let her show you her tattoo. If she likes you she will call you honey. Regardless she will look at you with the eyes of a big city taxi driver.
"Honey, yes, honey - we just got back the Glocks - try the 9 mm - would never shoot anything but a revolver myself but you are younger, right? Right?"
"Right" Each lane is $9 and with four boxes of factory .45 reloads for my Para Ordinance. She rings me up at around $70. Compare Continental to the escapism of a golf club or a high end suburban gym - an isolated place dedicated to one activity. One type of people. A great sense of community - there is a silent force that resides in golf club locker rooms, transforming people into members and members into one big glob of brotherhood in expensive sleave-less pullovers. There's only one reason to play golf. But step into the shooting range hall and the similarities fade fast. Every stall on the range represents its own cause and culture. 8 PM Tuesday night at Continental. I draw my automatic from the holster and place it on the table in from of me. I feel zero sense of community. I have nothing in common with the three black men in shiny track-suites in both number 3. The older of the three sets up an upper body silhouette target and let it slide out ten feet. He laughs and tells his brothers that he often sees white trash here practice with targets at 50 feet.
"...but almost all gun fights happens at close range, you know. You don't stand around man. You don't fucking aim and shit.", he says with authority, "You shoot faster than you can think and pray your sorry ass gets through without looking like fucking Swiss cheese" The other two nod their heads, sucking it all up.
I wheel out my twin IPSIC target to 25 feet and blind fire. How would I react in a real situation? I retrieve the target, look at it and push it out to 10 feet. I slide in a full mag and empty it by alternating between the two figures - left, right, left, right...14 shoots in 15 seconds. All of them in the A zone. Practicing at 10 feet is just silly. We have nothing in common.
On my right is a 70 year old man with oversized khaki pants trying out his six different revolvers. A couple of shots with that one, one step back - scratching his non-existent butt, then another one. He is not very good. Next one down right is a female police officer in full uniform - target set at 10 feet, two fast rounds a burst. Always practice shooting two rounds as someone getting shot just doesn't just flip backwards and die like they do in the movies - in real life it is very hard to know if you have hit your target or not. Always shot till they fall, two at a minimum. Double tap. Shoot at the biggest area you can find, the chest. Don't get sophisticated and try for the head.
Booth 9 - beige suite businessman I overheard earlier talking about mainframe computers - a week-night Walter Mitty with shoulder holster and a Beretta .40. Same twin IPSIC targets as I am using - he alternates between the two, four rounds- change of magazine - another four rounds. Over and over again. I would like to ask him what he is practicing for. Booth 12 - short pale man with a goatee takes a step back and looks me over. He is wearing an urban camouflage jacket and shiny boots. None of the fatigues carry any military insignia, but on the left sleeve there's a sewn on T2 patch - "Judgment day". I think he represents his own one-man army and I think he recruited himself. But again, what is he practicing for? What is he expecting that the rest of us just fail to see coming. A survivalist. Next to him is a giant black canvas bag. He makes no attempt to hide a AR-15 with sniper scope, a Mossberg Mariner, three semi-autos and a blackened commando knife. He smiles at me and asks me where I am from.
"Sweden", he nods but his eyes doesn't want to meet mine, "I travelled to Norway when I was younger - had a women propose to me there when I was thirty - but I was too young. But not today." He chuckles insecurely but leans forward to make sure I can hear through the ear-protection, "There is someone out there for everyone you know, you just got to find them."
"So what about all this hardware", I ask pointing to his bag.
"Oh nothing really, could come in handy.", he does not want to talk about it and steps back with another loud chuckle. Does he prepare for the next uprising or the war between those who will try disarm the Americans and those who refuse to let the government establish fire power monopoly (see what happened in Bosnia etc.). I should ask him where in his back yard he's got the other stuff stashed away. I have absolutely nothing in common with the man, nothing. I ask some of my friends at work what they thinks a couple of days later - they don't know but someone mentions a loner like my goatee who's got the basement and every closet stuffed with the most modern weaponry.
"But not one single spare firing pin", my colleague adds, "And no food or water. If a situation arises, what gun is he going to bring? Can only carry so many to a gun fight..."
If you ever visit Continental, take a field-trip to the mens room. Although everyone are there for the same reason, heads turn anxiously as someone new enters through the door. Danger? Like a Wild West saloon. Everyone gets measured. What gun? What holster? Many walk around with loaded guns in the lobby and restaurant. "ALL WEAPONS TO BE KEPT HOLSTERED AT ALL TIMES", demands the sign above the zinc. Big mama Marla wears a gun every day. The guys in the pro-shop all wear guns - a slight irregular bump just above the hip signals to other initiated. They all wear a vest or a loose shirt to conceal the weapon. In this world that's enough to show you are armed. Those who carry guns. And those who don't.
So, there are people who play golf. And people who doesn't play golf. Perhaps the guests at Continental tonight have something in common after all - they all carry guns. The difference between Continental Sportsman and your local golf establishment is that at Continental they carry guns to defend themselves from each other. The female police officer is training to be able to deal with a situation where - say, hypothetically speaking - three black guys like the ones in booth 3 would become unfriendly. The goatee worries about what will happen in the widening sociopolitical gap between the old man and the computerselling-beige suit and how to survive anarchy when the big riot between blacks and police is over. The suit is afraid when he walks out the elevator into his 12:th floor parking-space. The old man is up at night more now than ever, walking around his downtown apartment - and all the voices down the street after 2 AM - well, they are up to no good. Bottom line - you are on your own. The Government cannot protect you. The enemy is everywhere. Trust no one. Some schizophrenic sense of community after all. Go figure.
So I went shooting a couple of times, no big deal, right? Wrong. I struggled with whether or not I really wanted to own my own gun for while but knew from the start where it would end. Next step was taken by what drives most other human beings; boredom. Whenever in doubt - buy whatever it is and see what happens. But the first gun through the door at home however wasn't actually bought. It was lent to me. Me and my wife Lisa lived in a pretty rowdy neighborhood downtown Seattle, right off Pioneer square. Most bums we knew by first name but you also have the run of the mill back alley stuff that we could see from our bedroom window - mostly gangs and drug traffic. A Hispanic guy was shoot next to our garbage can one morning. We heard the gun-fire but went back to sleep and know it all from reading the papers the day after and looking at crime-scene tape around the building. When I tell my all American friend Carl about these matters he sort of looks at me as I am failing my responsibilities as a man protecting his family. Move or get armed, he tells me. Who do you think will protect you? He lowers his voice: "I know you don't have your license yet and that you hate to fill out all the resident alien paperwork. But I rather you had a gun in the house. If nothing happens no one will know. If something happens who cares if it saved your life?" You can't argue that. He brought a black Colt Detective .38 special when over for dinner one day. Lisa worried about the cleaning lady finding it for a while but we all sort of got used to having a loaded gun in the house the non-traumatic way. It wasn't anything we brought up with friends visiting. It was just there by the bed or in a drawer. Carl felt better. And I actually felt safer.
Think about it - the gun is probably not going to help much if someone breaks in the middle of the night. The incremental feeling of security must come from having the "possibility" to defend oneself, although I know that in most situations I will pretend to be sleeping hoping whoever is in the apartment finds something he likes and just leaves. Or simply just sleeping. Compare it to the bolt-lock I don't have on my door. The gun and its power in itself isn't it - it's the icon. The representation of potential deadly force. Has nothing to do with reality in it's most practical sense. Put an unloaded gun in your pocket and browse the aisles of a supermarket - it still carries some presence. Bring a full magazine in the other pocket - even more so. Cocked, locked and loaded - you just got to love it. The point is that I own many things that could kill a human being in one single blow - a large pair of scissors and a couple of fairly sharp kitchen knifes. But they just aren't designed for killing as a hand-gun. The icon value of a handgun is way higher. The less practical value a killing item contains, the higher the icon value. Looking at guns only, the icon value of a hunting rifle (although very potent) doesn't rank as high as a handgun. And an old beat up Colt .45 ranks higher than a more modern 1911 rebuilt with Aimpoint scope and full size beavertail for official competition. I believe one of the reasons the Colt .45 in it's original design still is so popular is because it has served in many wars - has nothing to do with proven reliability but more with the fact that this very model is know to have killed. Think about it. Great print-ad for Colt - "Has killed more humans than any other side-arm. And we guarantee it"
Eventually I got around to filling out the paperwork to get an alien-resident gun permit. It wasn't as bad as I thought and the whole shebang was processed a week faster than they had promised. I needed a piece of paper from the Swedish consulate here confirming I was not a convicted felon and that I was a respectable citizen (sic!).
But I didn't wait for the permit to get my own gun. I called on a couple of ads and got in touch with one Kevin who asked me what I wanted. I asked him what he had. He asked me what I wanted again. I said I wanted a 9 mm Beretta. He said he had a 9 mm Beretta and asked when I wanted it. I said I really didn't want to wait and agreed to pay $450 for it. He said we could meet in 20 minutes in the park next to my office if I brought cash. Fair enough. I expected a big fat redneck but Kevin turned out to be a well groomed guy my own age driving a brand new Toyota Camry. The transaction took about 5 minutes. Partly because I felt like I was doing something illegal. Partly because it was illegal. But mostly because I wasn't sure what to ask - how do you know if a gun is OK or not? I can answer that question today but couldn't then. My friend Carl was disappointed a friend of his had bought a 9 mm weapon. Two reasons - bad guys choose 9 mm (usually small enough to conceal and ammo is cheap), it's a gang-gun - and real men and good guys don't carry anything less than .40 caliber. Carl talks about stopping power and refer to the endless dead meat debate; 9 mm vs. .45. "Its a big hole at the end of the gun, that rates high on the intimidation scale", says Carl. Do I care? Sure I do - in search for the real thing I soon started to look at .45's. I wanted something basic, a no thrills Colt 45 I decided was a necessary compliment to the Beretta. I called Kevin and - again - 20 minutes later I was a two gun owner. Carl looked like I had come home after a long and difficult journey - he held it straight out, aimed and dry fired. "A model 70, cool", he handed it back to me with respect, "Go to any range and they will know that you know your stuff. That gun is a classic." Whenever in doubt, buy whatever it is and see what happens.
Yea, let's dwell on the 9 mm vs. .45 debate. I had the debate with myself every Thursday night shooting in the local league at Continental. The league is a poor mans version of IPSIC. No drawing from holsters, no running or shooting multiple guns. A normal relay requires 50 rounds and four targets. Five or six shooters and a referee. A course of fire could be: shoot 1 round at left target at 25 feet in 3 seconds. Starting position with gun resting on the bench - safety on and finger off the trigger. When the whistle goes off you unsafe your weapon, raise your gun and shoot. Another could be 2 rounds each side of a split target - mandatory reload - another two rounds on each target. Everything is very relaxed, family style. New shooters gets lots of encouragement and couples of all ages compete in the same relay.
So, I am up next. I open my bag and look at the two guns I brought. The 9 mm Beretta and the Colt. 45. Powerfactor is not taken into account for the competition. And let's be really clear - most people shoot better with a smaller caliber than a large caliber. The choice is obvious, right? But when I choose my 9 mm it feels like cheating. Think about that.
Some of the Thursday night shooters stretch the concept of cheating to include any semi-automatic gun and only count scores shot with a revolver. Revolvers just doesn't appeal to me and certainly don't carry much icon value in my book. They are to pragmatic, to much passive defense - not enough offense. But it is like the 9 mm vs. .45 debate - although I have preferences it echoes the rivalry between cat owners and dog owners. Which is best - cats or dogs. Don't think too much about that.
Others at the Thursday night league debate guns that doesn't exits - some of the contendents are disoriented propeller heads, skipping the night shift at Microsoft. From a distance they are easy to spot - they appear in herds (gaggle of nerds?) and all wear pizza stained T-shirts promoting obscure printer drivers. Guns are carried in fanny-packs. All guns are made by Glock. If you walk up closer you could hear: "...no way Jose, she nuked that alien with a plasma AR-21..."
"Negative, it was a combat shotgun with slugs"
"That's from Doom, dweeb, you can't fire a XP-12 imploder inside a black hole, everyone knows that."
"What if you had a flame-thrower that spew heavy water-acid..." suddenly all of them turn quiet as a girl approach them to ask for a match.
I don't feel like I belong to that category of shooters. Apart from the true geeks, the Thursday night shooters are usually a very homogenous group. No para-military types. No survivalists. No military fatigues. Just a bunch of semi well off heterosexual republicans. Politics are seldom discussed to avoid conflict - "we are here to have a good time". Right.
The Thursday night crowd ranks extremely low on the icon-value scale - everything about them breadths safety and suburban morality. At least 20% are women, most of them married. The Microsoft techies doesn't rank any higher, they just don't look dangerous enough - regardless of how much caffeine crazed overtime they put in, they just won't put on a ski-mask and go on a shooting spree in one of the corporate cafeterias.
The choice of guns by the Thursday night shooters is consistent - it's all good-guy-guns. I doubt anyone here on a Thursday really got upset when they banned assault rifles. A couple of revolvers, three or four of Colt 45's and 1911 clones. At least one did serve America in the Vietnam war and we all look at it and wonder if this very gun really did kill someone. But no one asks because we are here to have a good time. Two S&W .40 hard-chromed frames, one 9 mm Taurus - all self defense tools, no signs of aggression - just good hearted sporting goods. This Thursday someone also brought homemade brownies. Get it? Guns don't kill people.
The lack of intimidation goes hand in hand with the lack of offensiveness. Think about it. Take your regular Colt 45 and add a silencer. What you have is no longer an all purpose defense gun but a professional killing instrument - and even more important - an instrument designed for proactive use. Not reactive defense.
The editors at American Handgunner have a feel for the dynamics - whether or not they continuously thought it through - and placed the "hard-core .45 skull crusher, Navy SEALs custom pistol for close quarter battle (CQB)" on the cover of the 1994 August issue. Also called the strike gun to make sure we don't mistake it for something defensive. It's a modified Colt Government model - a shield in front of the muzzle to prevent someone from pressing the slide out of battery when in close and a shroud to prevent assailants from blocking the hammer. Ideally suited for "many of the tight situations encountered in both SWAT and HR situations". The reader is assumed knowledgeable enough to know the acronyms. The prime feature is a spike below the grip designed to cave in skulls. I give this one a high score on the icon-value-scale - obviously intended to wreak mayhem.
I thought more about the real need for guns after someone climbed up the fire escape, in through my bedroom window and stole a small stereo, a pearl necklace and my two guns. I realized that I just became part of the neighborhood and that I felt naked without my firepower. Carl lent me his .38 special again to keep me afloat till I got something new. I didn't want to buy what I had already owned and sort of searched for something with more icon value. To some extent I felt better about my ownership after the burglary - the threat was real and I wasn't just an action movie hero wanna-be-looser with disposable income. I ended up with two used guns - a Para Ordinance P-14 (ranks higher than a regular 1911 with it's high capacity magazine) and a Heckler and Koch 9 mm USP. The later no doubt denoting a sense of purpose; H&K does take what American Handgunner did with it's skull crusher article one step further. The 1994 H&K product catalog feature pictures of anti-terrorist units with night vision goggles and special forces frogmen assaulting the shore with MP5 machine guns equipped with silencers - adding water to the silencer unit actually increases sound reduction, the picture cap promises. H&K knows everything about icon value. The high tech polymer guns (called offensive handgun weapon systems) promises the latest in applied technology, torture tested under the most extreme weather conditions. This piece of equipment will prepare you for the ultimate challenge - not just self defense, not even close quarter battle urban warfare will do these guns justice - this is the equipment is designed to fight intelligent and well organized German terrorists. That appeals to me. The catalog also describes add on equipment such as tactical flash lights and laser aiming modules - the guns is ready for all of it with slots on the sides, no pistol-smiting necessary. All you need now is a dark pajamas and a ski-mask. Call your friends and go find some serious vigilante who just kidnapped the president. And if it is minus 40 degrees Celsius and raining mud you will be the only one shooting. Dead serious, if you want to train with your comrades, the back of the H&K brochure lists courses to take for the real McCoy - tactical submachine gun, firearms deployment during vehicle operations, active counter measures, dynamic entry... I like it - like all men and boys I have warrior dreams, as did all generations before me. This is as close to being a warrior as you can get without risking your life and keeping a decent paying day time job. And again - if the real thing comes down on me, I will be prepared. Being prepared for war is what being a warrior is all about. Someone please tell me again that the threat is for real or I am out of another $1200.
Gun magazines are great for the war-less warrior. I do find all of them pathetic both as to the content as well as to the form. But they are at least consistent; they promote the notion that the threat is real. How the treat is positioned sort of depends on where on the para-military and sleaze scale the magazine establishes itself. But the threat is there and guns (sometimes more than one) are necessary to deal with the situation. I pick up the September 94 issue of Handguns featuring an article on indoor gun fights; best survival tactics. It also has an article about where to keep your gun for home-defense; example after example of terrible things that has happened to real people and could happen to you, anytime. The in-door tactics article: "The threat is real". And American Handgunner has the standing column by excessive force police and gun-geek Massad Ayoob. He will take you beyond the regular threat and in detail describe what dirty deeds can happen out there on the street. In the October issue Massad advocates the necessity of a back-up gun. It describes 11 different incidents where bad guys after being shot a couple of times still come charging towards you growling (sic!) "You son of a bitch, I'll kill you." - you pull your second gun from your ankle holster and it will save your life. In the column Ayoob-files, Ayoob reminds us that life on the street is tough and that sometimes you have to use your thumbs to push out an eye-ball or two. Reading this you will understand that Massad himself have tried all his tricks in real life. He is one rough cop. And a truly pretentious and sickening columnist. For me, most of the stories are too crude and I rather rely on my own imagination to picture the threat that makes my gun-ownership worthwhile. The last thing I want is to have my gun ownership be associated with Mr. Ayoob. If I could choose an article to read I would rather see a detailed description of what a counter terrorist group would do for tactics in different situations and what equipment they use. And I wouldn't hesitate to sign up for a subscription if someone intelligent started to publish a monthly gun magazine that could be what Wired is to the computer press. Do gun magazines really have to look like Xeroxed John Deer brochures? Do I really have to read another article where the overweight editor pasted black and white pictures of himself in a gravel pit testing the difference between a Glock and a Sigma? Do all articles really have to say good things about every gun? Revenue stream is advertising.
Daily newspapers aren't that different. I am reading about shootings at a bar nearby or a drive by shooting two blocks down from our apartment. There have been more shootings down on pioneer square where we live than in all of Sweden last year. So I read about that sipping my latte at Starbucks, feeling the weight of that piece tucked in between my pants and my lower back. It's a jungle out there.
Perhaps films do the same thing. Although we know it is fiction we might for an hour and a half dive into a world where the threat is alive and well. Does it carry over into everyday living? Sure it does. They sold a lot of long barreled revolvers after Dirty Harry hit the screens in the mid 70's, I read in a book somewhere. And a lot of Berettas after Die Hard and Lethal Weapon. I don't think I will spend my Christmas in a skyrise fighting terrorists with thick accents, but having seen the gun in action does affect the image of the weapon. It adds to the icon value - and there we have the connection between film, my interest in guns and icon value. It is the threat that appeals to the archetypal warrior in me - the weapon of choice change over time.
That explains why western movies doesn't really grab me as does Under Siege or Die Hard. The red skin threat is not real anymore - in my neighbor hood you might get hurt by an Indian, but only if you trip over one sleeping in the back alley. Same thing goes for the Alien movies - loved them all but outer space creatures just doesn't seem to justify $500 for my Para-Ordinance/P-14
So, what about computer games - how do they relate to the real warrior in me. Fighting off 200 zombies with power tools will not help me visualize any real threats. And playing games is hardly good practice for anything but epilepsy.
This is the game I really want to play: "HOME-SEAL 2000". I doesn't exist yet but here's how it would play; starts out with a video sequence from my neighborhood, 1:st avenue South, Seattle. It's night. From the ferry dock a block down 200 evil terrorists submerges, eybrows that meet, all highly skilled assassins with the most modern equipment. You see a US police car drive by pulling over to the side to let them pass by. Calling 911 will get you killed (I know, there's a survivialistic stroke to that one - the government is corrupted and the police is the enemy!). Saving the city is up to you. Being the prepared citizen you are you arm yourself with the basic stuff all real men has laying around the house; a couple of pistols, night vision goggles and a machine gun. The rest is about scoring points in urban warfare; aim with the mouse and trigger is right mouse key. The more realistic, the better. Wouldn't mind either to have the game save the bad guys' boss till last (games usually lack the narrative flow movies offer, where the protagonist and the root of all evil battle it out in the last scene) where you would have to take him on unarmed before collecting those bonus points and moving on to next level of the game where naked overweight neighborhood housewives decides to gang up and with the force of sharp kitchen utilities kill or imprison all men in a castration camp. Again, you alone can save the male population etc. etc.
At face value, my thrill with carrying a concealed gun is contradictory. I spent a year and a half doing my military service carrying weapons with far greater fire-power than what I own today. And I considered my service to be waste of time for the most part. And having a bazooka or a Husquarna machine gun (Carl-Gustaf here in the US) slung over the shoulder represented no more icon-value than my green fatigues or my field cooking kit. There were war mongers and other low life juveniles who I had to go through basic training with - they usually brought their own knives to our field exercises. Stilettos. The throwing knives, ninja stars and karate pins some of the guys kept hidden in their leg pockets just was uncalled for. That was considered a threat and projected much more power than the guns we all had to lug around. And after the hand to hand combat training we went through, having been taught how to do a silent kill with a small shovel, simple gardening tools took on a more serious meaning. Some 18 year old guys stole ammunition and magnesium traps - although they probably didn't have anything to shoot the ammo with and worst case magnesium traps will make someone go blind for a day or two. I remembered how exited I was looking at the stolen goods at a weekend party down town Stockholm. That ammo in that apartment certainly wasn't justified - and that made it bad stuff. Something evil to be used for destruction. The machine guns we carried on weekdays during the service were different - part of the system and justified by the circumstances. I bet I would feel the same thing if I was walking through Chechen in Russia right now. Every man would in his right mind would carry a gun, therefore it is justified. War has a tendency to justify a lot of weapons. And if it is justified it lacks icon-value.
So, there is a relationship between icon value and what can be considered justified fire power. The examples brought up as horror illustration in the gun debate takes this to the extreme. A man with an assault rifle goes off on a shooting spree in a school-yard. Kids playing cats cradle at lunch break doesn't justify any fire power at all and therefore the icon value - here, the ability to cause unjustified destruction - is maxed out. I tried this myself over Christmas. I did most of my late December shopping in a crowded mall with my Para-Ordinance cocked and locked tucked in my pants. I felt no urge or sick will to pull it out to demonstrate power or cause harm. But the point is, it felt very different from when I carry it after hours to and from my garage. It just wasn't justified at the mall. A warrior without a war is no more than a dysfunctional sick dude with a gun.
I now realize that my fascination with guns has to do with the ability to kill other people. I've been taking hand to hand combat classes. The courses were held by a Jonathan Gurder at the then newly opened range east of Seattle called WSI (Weapons Safety Institute). Unlike Continental Sportsman, this range poses with a conscious absence of westernstyle chairs and greasy cheeseburgers - hence the very misleading and pretentious name. I've seen Jonathan around the range before; short, healthy looking redhead with freckles and a Glock. I couldn't make time to take his regular week end classes - although it would have been interesting to see who attends and what they train for - and instead dragged him out of bed at 5 AM to give me a private lesson. $35 an hour. We were facing each other in a white room with padded floor on the second floor of WSI, both in jeans and T-shirt. My T-shirt says Microsoft Windows 95. His T-shirt says Los Angeles Triathlon: shooting, loathing, running. As we went through the basics moves I felt the same sensation as I did the first time Carl took me to the shooting range. I am learning how to kill. How to survive a street fight, mano a mano. I can feel how the warrior in me comes forth and breadths morning air - the sweet feeling of crossing the shaded line over to what associates with a finer balance between life and death. As I got more involved in the arts of hand to hand combat and got to work with two of the best real world military instructors in the US, John Holschen and Ron Haskins, the conceptual part of the training took me closer to the treat warriors feed off of. You get attacked with a dummy knife, a fake gun is pointed to your head. The practical skills I learn turn that threat into a manageable situation, where the warrior gets tuned to be in control. I am playing with abstract situations of pain and death and in a sweaty training hall I feel like I am closer to being able to turn all that energy to my advantage. In a real situation.
"OK, OK now hold on to that hand all the way down and you are likely to dislocate a shoulder as the arm twists", Ron says as he lets himself be thrown to the floor, "and then kick hard to the ankle and step back. There are hundreds of bones in the foot, kick hard, break them and step back. Or go for the knee - whatever is closest"
Basic moves are simple: cover your head with both arms, move in really close and strike downwards towards the base of the scull with the left elbow - follow through - hit upwards against the gullet and strike downwards with right elbow and then upwards again. Most moves end by breaking something; an ankle, shoulder, spine or wrist. Neck. At the end of a session my instructor looked at me and asked what else I wanted to learn. "Attack", I replied remembering the days from grade school. If a bigger guy came up and you knew it was going to be a fight, you didn't stand around waiting for him to throw the first punch so you could show off your defense skills. You hit first, without warning - as hard as you could where it hurt the most. Ron nodded as if in approval and showed me how to tweak the basic moves to be able to down someone using the initiative to your advantage. And silently if necessary.
The training has given me something to carry around - just like a gun. It's a concealed weapon - puritanistic, down and dirty survival - simple moves that will make the martial art high kicking youngsters look like angry ballet dancers. A kick to the knee won't give me points for style but it will break a knee cap in a fraction of the time it takes to jump up in the air, do a 180 degree butterfly kick and scream in Japanese. Where's the icon value in hand to hand combat skills? I don't know, but the key learning is how closely this ties to pulling the trigger of a pistol. I now see my fascination come clearer - it's all about killing. The ability to take life. Or to control life; firstly my own. Secondly others. As Ron took me further in his teachings the control aspect becomes even clearer.
"Meet Chuck", he says after one of our short breaks" Chuck weights 100 pounds more than you do and will now try strangle you". Although Chuck is big, I had no problem breaking out of his grip. I could have gone for the eyes as well with my thumbs but got a relaxed but firm grip of the back of his scull and twisted his head as he slammed into the wall behind us.
"That will work", Chuck said rubbing his neck, smiling.
I looked at my bare hands in amazement.
Here's a theoretical experiment: if it really is all about killing, would a short class in "poisoning", "homemade bombs" or "fencing" do the same for me? I think the answer is yes, yes an no. You could derive the same answers from any issue of SWAT or Soldier of Fortune; read the back pages filled with ads for video courses and books. Next to the ad for a calendar with hard hitting bikini babes shooting ultra modern machine guns in the desert and right above the ad for affordable night vision goggles - handbooks with all you need to build a silencer out of old tin cans (and it's legal!), bombs from off the shelf grocery store products. But you wont find anything on fencing with a foil. Although fencing is one of the only combat sport worthy of the Olympics it is still a sport that today has very little bearing on real world survival. You can take a heavy sniper rifle to the next hunting trip or any size knife and still be met with respect. But don't bring that old foil - it is an artifact totally drained of icon value. A fake samurai sword is much better and might even make it's way to an ad in a second rate gun magazine (Own the secret weapon of the Ninja yak yak...). Why? Because fencing has been civilized to the degree where yuppie-WASP's dress in white and trot back and forth expensive clubs scoring points from tapping each other on the chest. I fenced as a kid - I know it can be a violent sport. But keeping my old equipment around for home defense doesn't seem like a manly thing to do. More importantly; no special ops. team will ever again take swords to a war in the 90's. It just isn't practical for killing purposes. But if we ever saw pictures of a Ranger team heading for a close quarter battle with sword hanging from their combat rig, this notion could change over night.
Because it is not a sport. Because it is all about killing.
One summer morning when I was 7 years old my father showed me how to shoot the family air-pistol. It was a copy of the old large frame 9 mm Walter. Bang, bang. I was fascinated with the power of the gun. For about ten minutes. Then I got bored. Shortly after my father disappeared out of sight to go fix the fence on the other side of the house, led pellets where flying across the yard in all directions. A bumble-bee bought it big time. And a lazy seagull skating over the clear blue sky screeched in high pitch when it got hit midship. I was at last the rightful ruler of my world that summer morning - making a big black beetle crossing the grasslawn just in front of my bare feet beg for mercy before I double taped him in the forehead. What new power I possessed! What this could mean to the power structure and hierarchy amongst neighboring kids. And how sweet the revenge would be, I thought as my little brother came out the verandah door with my firetruck tucked under the arm - that little thief deserves it.
"After lunch...", a smooth fatherly voice suddenly from behind, interrupting the justice to be made,"...we can practice strong hand only shooting."
Next time - after lunch - I anticipated and looked at the seagull sitting pretty at the roof of the dock. Next time you won't be so lucky. With my big toe I pushed what was left of the black beetle under a rock and sighed. Poor bugger, almost feel bad for him. I wished the beetle would realize that his life was not at all taken in vain - how his death was, ugh, somehow necessary. Some must die. Some survive, I thought. I was in control that summer morning and knew that it was all about killing.
Johan Liedgren
(johan@honkworm.com)