Talking America

Annie, get your gun

• Jon Kelly
• 15 Sep 08, 06:24 AM GMT

Carol Ruh cried the first time that she held a gun. Visiting a shooting range in Arizona while on holiday with her husband, her anti-firearms views made the trip an upsetting experience.

But after she told the staff of her discomfort, she underwent an epiphany.

"It was one of those life-defining moments," she recalled. "The gentleman behind the counter said: 'It's not the gun that kills, it's the person behind it.' And that made a lot of sense to me.

"If your heart is that set on doing damage, you can use a chair, a baseball bat, a pen..."

Since that day, Carol's attitudes have changed completely. Having moved to Phoenix permanently, she now runs classes teaching other female shooters how to hone their skills and heads a group called the Arizona Women's Shooting Association. Every time she leaves the house she reaches for her handbag, her keys and her gun.

I'm sure you've guessed why I wanted to come to their range. As soon as Sarah Palin's place on the Republican White House ticket was announced, pundits around the world picked over the apparent disparity between the Alaska governor's femininity and her handiness with a rifle.

And here, too, the lady shooters didn't conform to the stereotype of gun enthusiasts as rabid, wild-eyed survivalists. They'd laid on sandwiches and soda for me and chatted away about their children and careers. They were nice people.

But I admit that I'm uneasy around guns. I mentioned in my initial post how I've lived through the import of many American phenomena to my homeland - some of them good, some of them bad. The senseless killing of schoolchildren with firearms fell squarely into the latter category.

Of course, none of the women I met at the range liked violence any more than I did. I could see that they came here for the pleasure of firing at paper targets. All the same, it seemed that guns symbolised something more to them.

"Darling, you're in the west," laughed Carol. "This was the way of life out here. The whole genre of America was built on the west. It's part of out culture."

I think she was right about this. Europeans have no second amendment, no folk memory of living in a frontier society.

And the same applies to other parts of the US, too. Carol said she wouldn't vote for Barack Obama because he and running mate Joe Biden, both supporters of gun control, didn't understand why she loved shooting.

I wanted to find out what made this culture appealing to women, though, especially after Carol's husband Pete, also a convert, told me that he believes they are better at hitting a target than men.

"Their hand-eye co-ordination is better," he said. "They're more patient. You don't get any of the macho stuff."

So I got talking to Andrea Barringer, 27, who was sporting a chunky Glock 9mm on her hip. She'd grown up around guns, firing her first shot at the age of five.

"I think it's a fun pastime," she told me. "I go out shooting in the desert.

"Plus, I'm a single woman. If I was ever in that situation..." She left the sentence hanging.

Andrea hadn't decided to vote yet, but liked the look of Sarah Palin - a "typical American woman" to whom she could relate.

So too could 56-year-old flight attendant Lorra Moore. She'd only been shooting for a year under Carol's instruction, but hoped that the Alaska governor's prominence would encourage more females to take up the sport.

"I think it will really help to deflect the fears of women who don't understand guns," she said. "They don't understand that they can use them as easily as a man."

There was still one thing I wanted to know, though. What did she have to say to those - both American and foreign - who saw massacres like Dunblane and Columbine as a priori arguments for gun control?

"Those incidents were horrific," she said. "But the bad guys are always going to get the guns.

"I want to preserve the right of the good guys to protect themselves."

I nodded. This very American debate would continue long after I'd gone. I got back on the bus with the sound of pistol-fire ringing in my ears.

• Permalink
• Comments (122)

In God we trust

• Jon Kelly
• 15 Sep 08, 02:17 AM GMT

The Radiant Church in Surprise, Arizona, does a pretty good job of reconciling God and Mammon. With its own bookstore and drive-through coffee shop, the 22-acre campus felt more like an upmarket retail park than a place of worship.

This was quite deliberate. When he was building it in 1996, Pastor Lee McFarland - a former Microsoft executive - wanted it to look like a shopping mall. Hence the X-Boxes laid on for children and the free Krispy Kremes handed out to worshippers.

I came here because no less than 42% of Americans tell pollsters that they attend church each week. And as the Radiant church is one of the country's fastest-growing, I hoped it would give me some clues about which way religious voters were leaning.

When I arrived inside the main hall, a band was playing tasteful soft-rock with biblical-themed lyrics beneath a bank of plasma screens. Over 1,000 casually dressed congregants sang and clapped along.

Then Pastor McFarlane took the stage for his sermon. He was neither a demagogue nor a ranter. Wearing a Hawaiian shirt and jeans, he had the wry delivery of a New York stand-up comedian. He told a self-deprecating story about battling with a flying insect while riding his motorbike. I liked him.

When he talked about how bad things could still happen to people who went to church, the screens flashed up a montage of You've Been Framed-style home movie clips showing a baby wetting himself at a Christening and a priest dropping a communion wafer down a woman's cleavage. Like the rest of the congregation, I laughed.

After the service, I sat down with him to find out what influence churches like his had over political activity. He said that he never endorsed one candidate over another and left it to his followers to make up their own minds.

"I like to think that when I'm preaching, I'm not saying my own words," he said.

"We don't even look at the candidates, per se. It's more, 'What are the timeless principles in the Bible that we would give to the candidates?'"

It's true that he avoided political themes during the sermon I heard, other than to condemn racial prejudice - a statement that was greeted with loud cheers from his flock.

Nonetheless, most of the churchgoers I spoke to told me they were voting Republican. The party's anti-abortion principles were cited again and again. While John McCain had once been viewed with suspicion by evangelicals, the presence of Sarah Palin on the ticket appeared to have energised them.

In the lobby I met friends Laura Palmer, 39, and Janell Gallop, 48, sharing a coffee after the service. Both had opposing views on the relationship between faith and politics.

For Janell, religion was absolutely paramount.

"I vote for people who have a basis in Christianity," Janell said. "This country was built on Christianity.

"I'm going to vote for McCain. I believe that Obama has a Muslim background. He doesn't have a Christian background."

Laura interjected that this wasn't strictly accurate. Although just as staunch a believer as her friend, she described herself as an independent voter who didn't like to see politicians giving sermons.

"Religion and politics don't mix," she shrugged. "I shouldn't tell you how you should live.

"I can't make you think the way I do."

She can't. But it's clear that there are enough Christian voters to sway an election. Whether more of them are thinking like Janell or Laura remains to be seen.

• Permalink
• Comments (47)