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As we prepare this issue for press I am getting ready to attend the National Rifle Association (NRA) Convention in Orlando. It seems like just, well, two months ago that I was there for the SHOT Show, about which several features and a couple of mini-reports in this issue are devoted. In September, I'll head to Houston for the 2003 Gun Rights Policy Conference (GRPC).By all means, please try to join us. Although I will probably have one or two other short business trips yet added to my calendar, these three events bring me in contact with the greatest numbers of gun rights activists, subscribers, business associations and old friends. Especially at NRA and GRPC, I run into a strange phenomenon that I almost always tell myself I am going to comment on, and this year, I shall. At these events I talk to lots of folks, and invariably, as I hand out literature, point out a new book or offer a sample of Women & Guns or Gun Week, I hear this comment: "No, thanks, I don't want to be on any list." Even allowing for the number of people who are looking for a polite way to decline, along the lines of "thanks, but I'm just looking," in case I'm secretly trying to sell them something, there seems to be an inordinate amount of law-abiding, self-determining types who are afraid of being on a "list." It's not just confined to gun folks. My friend Anne maintains a frightening vigilance over her telephone and mail box, so that no stray bit of information comes her way. My sister-in-law used to refuse to vote because for many years that was where New York State took its jury pool from. (They now use Department of Motor Vehicle lists as well, so that practicality trumps paranoia and shirking of public responsibility.) This listophobia does, however, reach fairly laughable proportions among those of us in the gun friendship (a term coined by my friend David I. Caplan, but sadly out of usage). I do not refer to justifiable and understandable aversion to lists of gunowners maintained by the government. History tells us that those sorts of lists are used for confiscation-and I do not mean only in other countries that maintain large armies in snappy uniforms. California, New York City and, most recently, Maryland during the "Beltway Sniper" incident last year, have all used such lists to either take guns away from people (in California and New York City, certain long guns that were originally supposed to be grandfathered) or try to find people who matched a certain criteria. In Maryland, the gun lists were compared with the motor vehicle lists so that owners of rifles of certain calibers could be matched to owners of white vans. Of course in that case, the white van was a red herring and the gun seems very likely stolen and therefore not on any list of law-abiding gunowners. The lists that seem to terrify folks at gun gatherings are lists which will get you mail and occasional phone calls from-uh, other gunowners. Yes, of course, many of those calls and mailings will conclude with a pitch for donations, or sale of a subscription or book or video. Most also contain useful information on what's going on in the gun world. And, often as not, the book, or magazine, or whatever, might actually be of interest to you. I am on so many lists that cross each other with chilling efficency that my mailman, Diane, and I are on a first name bases. It begins in the dead of winter with heaps of nursery catalogs, peaks in election years with September-November frenzied political mailings-federal, state and local-and comes to a crashing conclusion in the fall with the onslaught of holiday gift catalogs. Just the other day I got in the mail: a hunting video from the NRA, a quilt catalog, my National Scrabble Association newsletter, Massad Ayoob's 2003 course list and a bill from the cable company. Except for the cable bill, all of them were at least of passing interest. The nuisance factor of unsolicited mail and phone calls is undeniable. But also, most times, undeniably small. The unwanted mail can easily be converted to score pads or grocery and gift lists. And if you do get more mail than your sensibilities can bear, you can always ask to be taken off the list. The unwanted phone calls are a bit more intrusive, but can be screened with the same vigilance to which you avoid calls from your more trying friends. Last fall, sitting in the waning sunlight on the patio at Susan and Jim Laws' house in Texas, our chat was interrupted by a phone call, which Susan answered. She returned with the news that it was the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, asking for a donation. "Did you tell them," I said, "that you just made a delicious gumbo for one of their Trustees and made up your guest room for her?" Susan hadn't, but promised to tell them the next time they called. Information is only valuable if you have it, and sometimes you only get it if you're on a list.
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By
Peggy Tartaro,
