“I Can’t Help But Consider the Ways Guns Have Been Abused Outside of the Gun Range” (Fall 2023 Student Range Visit Reflection #10)

This is the tenth of many student gun range field trip reflection essays from my fall 2023 Sociology of Guns seminar (see Reflection #1, Reflection #2, Reflection #3, Reflection #4, Reflection #5, Reflection #6, Reflection #7, Reflection #8, and Reflection #9). The assignment to which students are responding can be found here. I am grateful to these students for their willingness to have their thoughts shared publicly.

Sociology of Guns student at range, Fall 2023. Photo provided by student.

By Alexis Williams

On March 27, 2023, Audrey Hale walked into The Covenant School, a Christian elementary school in my hometown of Nashville, TN, and opened fire with multiple guns, killing three 9-year-old children, a beloved custodian, a substitute teacher, and the head of the school.

The guns that Hale used during this mass shooting included an AR-15 military-style rifle, a 9 mm Kel-Tec SUB2000 pistol caliber carbine, and a 9 mm Smith and Wesson M&P Shield EZ 2.0 handgun. Looking back at the video I have of myself shooting the AR-15 during the gun range field trip, from the audio alone I couldn’t help but to be reminded of the videos students recorded during the Parkland school shooting in 2018, and the recent fear and tragedy young students endured just miles away from my home.

At the range, we learned that the rifle was, despite its complex physical features, designed to be easy to handle for young soldiers who had minimal training time before war. Though the contextual purpose of its handling simplicity was viable, the ease of taking the life of another has extended beyond soldiers at war to individuals with malicious motives stripping innocent people of their lives. Of course, some rifles are frequently used for hunting, but as we also learned during the field trip, the .223 caliber round (that most AR-platform rifles fire, and the round that we used in our AR-15 at the range) is too small for hunting large game. To know that almost anybody (like Audrey Hale) can go out and purchase such a deadly weapon that goes beyond the need of self-protection is scary.

What’s scarier is that even after mass shootings like the one at The Covenant School, Tennessee still has some of the weakest gun laws in the country. It’s legal to purchase a firearm without a background check, there are no red flag laws, and one does not have to have a permit to carry a gun.

While it is frightening to see little change to prevent mass shootings in the future in Tennessee, it’s also scary to imagine the other extreme in which only police are permitted to carry guns. As a minority, I’ve paid close attention to how trigger-happy some officers are when met with situations involving black or brown individuals in the United States. In fact, studies have shown that even ordinary people would “routinely shoot more quickly at black men than at white men, and are more likely to mistakenly shoot an unarmed black man than an unarmed white man” (University of Colorado at Boulder). The racism that our country was built on and that seeps through its institutions, systems, and (even if unconsciously) through many individuals would no doubt pose a disadvantage to a colored community if we were without protection.

Coming from a family of gun carriers, I’d never really stood in opposition to citizens having the right to bear arms. In a society where gun control is a big talk of the town, I believe I’ve always stood in the middle. While I believe we should be able to carry handguns to protect ourselves or our animals if needed, I can’t see why one would need to purchase military-grade weapons for things like hunting or self-defense.

It’s also hard to determine one’s motive in purchasing guns or what emotional or mental sufferings they may be dealing with that could be fueling their desire to possess a firearm. For example, within the last 2 years, Hale — who suffered from an emotional disorder — had collected several guns that they had hid from their family, guns that are not useful for hunting or self-defense, but only for taking the lives of innocent children and adults.

My experience at the gun range was exhilarating and fun (especially since it had been years since I’d shot a gun with my family), but in my reflection, I can’t help but consider the ways guns have been abused and perverted outside of the gun range and used as instruments of violence that rob lives for no good reason.