When I recall afternoons spent at Gissberg Lakes, Lake Goodwin Park, Deception Pass Park, the Jetty or other favorite places, nothing in those memories makes me feel I’d have been better off carrying a gun. But then I’m not a hard-core gun-person.

First I should explain my fear of guns. It took root in Korea where I saw what bullets do to human tissue. When a tent-mate nearly bled to death from shooting himself in the foot, he demonstrated that guns are equally lethal in the hands of friends or enemies.

I’m not anti-gun. In past years I shot four deer, a few pheasants and a lot of ducks. Take that, my Army experience and some plinking with a 22 at pesky ground-squirrels that invaded a friend’s potato field and I qualify to handle about a dozen different guns.

I fear that too many gun owners may be overly willing to use them against fellow humans. I fear the fantasies that cause them to need guns, dreams of blowing away intruders or quick-drawing against menacing footsteps in the dark. Rather than a benign conviction that carrying a gun provides security, there is a conviction that if provoked, they have the wherewithal to put the offender down.

The average gun owner kills hundreds or thousands of people while playing violent video games. Though they are only games, everything one does ends up lodged in the brain so there is reason to believe that experience with death-dealing games alters what a gun-packing person might do when under stress.

According to World Health Organization data for deaths by firearms in developed nations, the U.S. leads with 11.3 deaths per hundred thousand. France follows with 5.0, Canada comes next with 3.4, then Norway at 3.2, Australia 1.8, Germany 1.5 and Spain trails at 0.9 deaths from gun-shot per hundred thousand. We in the USA shoot down 2.26 times as many people as the nearest contender. Yet the gun lobby clamors for the right to carry more guns in more places.

In the first six years of the Iraq War over 4,000 American soldiers were killed. Cause of death statistics tell us that more than that number of American civilians are killed by guns in the United States every seven weeks! Guns account for more than two-thirds of homicide deaths involving spouses or ex-spouses.

If the numbers are to be believed, aside from guns carried in hazardous occupations, guns are all about me with scant regard for the safety and comfort zones of others. As of February 22nd, gun-packers now have permission to carry concealed loaded guns into national parks. What is to fear in nature preserves that might require lethal force?

The answer is that there doesn’t need to be a reason. Some people just like to carry guns. Imagine my reaction when I spotted the grip of a Dirty Harry-type revolver protruding from under the jacket of a neighbor at a communion rail. Somehow it didn’t square with the old invitation to the Lord’s Supper, “Draw near in faith, all you who are in love and charity with your neighbors.”

When it came to legislating gun laws for parks, gentler folk pressed the case that most parks are natural preserves where explosions and the smell of cordite should remain foreign. The quiet of nature and rights of wildlife, they said, should trump the preference of human intruders to carry lethal armament.

There should be a clear and present need for a person to carry a gun in a park and since target practice isn’t encouraged, what else is there? Are gun-packers expecting to be mugged, attacked, robbed or otherwise savaged in public parks?

In 2006 when 273 million visitors toured national parks, 11 deaths were recorded and investigated. Two were pushed off cliffs, one was a suicide, another a DUI. One was shot by a nut on a killing spree, another died in a drunken brawl and the others died mysteriously. One’s body was dumped in the park. That calculates to be 0.05 times the death rate in the rest of society, making parks as safe as Spain when it comes to gunshots. Why spoil it?

The gun lobby won their point because legislators are fearful of opposing NRA demands, and with good reason. The NRA harbors some truly scary gun enthusiasts. One can’t oppose the NRA and read about recent slaughters without wondering if the dots might somehow connect. It is the type of wariness that keeps police in Sturgis, South Dakota, from enforcing excessive exhaust noise ordinances during Harley rallies. Fear.

Gun-packers bring either fear or aggression to parks, take your pick. A self-protection weapon serves as a reminder that peril might lurk nearby, thus keeping its owner in a permanent state of red-alert. Ironically, rather than providing a sense of security, a gun on the hip lowers the bar for violent reaction. It follows that fear is ratcheted up for both gun-toters and gentle people when guns are on the scene.

World-wide records of assaults and killings involving firearms confirm that we are far and away the most violent among developed nations. We’re tops at violent sports and warfare. It should stop there and not invade state and national parks where peace-loving people go to find a retreat from societal violence.

Comments may be addressed to: rgraef@verizon.net.