guns

I first met John when I visited his home in Hillsboro in the course of doing in-home computer trouble shooting for a southern New Mexico internet service provider. John was an accomplished photographer and I went out of my way to visit with him whenever I was in the vicinity. We spent some time outdoors together doing photography and we also did a little target shooting.

 One night, I don't recall if it was a problem with the electricity or the gas, John's old house burned to the ground. He lost a lifetime of photographic work and pretty much everything else, including guns and photo gear. He lived in an rv on the home site for a time after the fire, and finally moved down from mountainous Hillsboro to river-side Truth or Consequences.

 I saw less of John after the move because my service area did not extend that far from Las Cruces. Then, in 2008 we moved to Albuquerque even further away, but we still stopped in to see John on occasional trips between Albuquerque and Las Cruces. John cultivated a circle of artist friends in T or C, continued to do some photography and began seriously collecting antique guns.

* * *

On December 14, 2012 Adam Lanza killed twenty 6 and 7 year old children at Sandy Hook Elementary School with an assault rifle, along with six adults at the school. He had murdered his mother at home before going to the school, and he finally shot himself after the massacre.

wikipedia

The next morning, John got on his computer and emailed everyone he knew to express his alarm over  Sandy Hook.  He was worried that the public reaction to the mass shooting would result in efforts to curb gun ownership.

I was appalled by the fact that, in the face of the deaths of all those children and the bottomless grief of parents, John's first thoughts were directed toward his gun collection.  It seemed an utterly obscene reaction, and it put an end to our friendship.

Since then, Sandy Hook-type incidents have been replicated many times, as have the reactions of NRA supporters which have seemed equally obscene as what John expressed.

(... to be continued)