By Joy Bergmann
“You don’t have to own one,” he says. “Just understand my right to do so.” Asked about Columbine High, Beauchamp replies, “You can’t regulate stupidity.” There are already 23,000 gun-related laws on the books, he says, and the homicidal teenagers violated dozens of them. He says his own research into the 1997 school shooting in Pearl, Mississippi, revealed a little-reported act of armed heroism. “The assistant principal ran out to his car, got his own gun, and held the young gunman at bay until police arrived 11 minutes later. Who knows how many lives he saved? I mean, who’s everybody waiting around for? The cops. Who have what? Guns.”
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With these points covered, Birch turns the class over to his assistant, Julie Thompson, a 44-year-old retired air force officer and computer consultant from Chicago. Thompson talks about proper gun handling, showing the students how to determine their “sight eye” and load the guns available at the workshop (most of them owned by the instructors and the rest of them $12 rentals). She provides perfunctory safety tips, apologizing for the brevity of her presentation and encouraging all potential owners to seek further NRA instruction. She then models correct shooting posture, showing how to absorb recoil shocks, leaning back on a pair of sassy three-inch mules.
