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"FacebookPinterestclint with gun.jpg \n\n When you live in New York but hail from somewhere exotic, like Wisconsin, it helps to have a go-to joke about your home state. This is mine: In Appleton, Wis., where I grew up, everybody knows someone whose mom\u2019s boyfriend owns an assault rifle. I\u2019ve said this, I don\u2019t know, hundreds of times\u2014occasionally to make a point, often just for laughs\u2014but that doesn\u2019t make it any less true. It\u2019s pretty true. Without my hippy professor parents ever finding out, I spent summer trips as a teenager unloading AR-15s into the trees of Wisconsin\u2019s Northwoods and shooting pistols at paper targets shaped like human beings. I think my friend\u2019s mom\u2019s boyfriend\u2019s name was Tom. They were Tom\u2019s guns. He was proud of them.\n\nSo gun ownership is not foreign to me, but I never considered owning one myself. Not until this morning, anyway, when I read that the Daily Caller was giving away handguns for free, once a week, until the day of the election. They come in one of three colors, and the barrel is inscribed with the Bill of Rights. I signed up immediately.\n\nBut then I started to wonder why the Daily Caller might want me to be armed. It couldn\u2019t be a numbers game--once a week til the election was only a few dozen extra gun owners, hardly a movement of the people. It might be a publicity thing: do something that liberals think is absolutely nuts and they\u2019ll link to it in a heartbeat. So I emailed Matt Lewis, a senior editor at the Daily Caller. &amp;quot;I think a lot of people are reading more into this than was intended,&amp;quot; he said, meaning me. &amp;quot;My guess is that this is more jarring\u2014or at least surprising\u2014to members of the media than it is to the millions of American sportsmen and gun owners around the nation.&amp;quot;\n\nFor me, it was less jarring than it was enticing. Finally, a completely noncommittal entry point for gun ownership! I wouldn\u2019t be the type of person who buys a gun; I\u2019d just be a guy who accepted one, a gun recipient. Like a party favor. Where would I put it? In my nightstand? Above my door frame? On my bookshelf, next to Dostoyevsky? I don\u2019t have kids\u2014or any intention of buying ammo\u2014so the possibilities were bound only by my apartment\u2019s square footage.\n\nSurely I\u2019m not the first person to think of a handgun as a decoration\u2014although I might be first liberal to be so flip about a potential instrument of death. But what other use could it have for me? Would I be able to wield it fast enough if someone were breaking in through my fire escape? I doubt I\u2019d have any interest in escalating the confrontation to a deadly one in that scenario. I certainly wouldn\u2019t want to carry it around, because, again, why would I want to escalate a confrontation that could have ended in a simple black eye? It\u2019s a question of expected value: is there more risk in carrying one at the wrong moment than there is reward in having one at the right moment? My suspicions is yes.\n\nBut the gun-as-decoration seems kind of bulletproof (ha). That, anyway, was what those guns I was firing up in Wisconsin were\u2014little (or quite large) hand-held decorations for Tom, a great deal less useful than his hunting rifles in a forest, infinitely less useful than a can of mace on the street. One wonders if the other entrants in the Daily Caller\u2019s contest are aware that the best case scenario for them is that their handgun will never be discharged, or if the fantasy of ownership is inclusive of the heroism one would get to feel after dropping a would-be mugger. Speaking of decorations: Could you get that mounted?\n\nAnyway, I hope I win. I\u2019d like to own a gun that I\u2019ll never use. Maybe I\u2019ll put it next to my wok."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/when-you-live-in-new>