Firearms as a Quiet Pastime http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33476-2000May30.html
By Daniel LeDuc
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 31, 2000 ; B01
Bill Bandlow was loading the two long black cases and the orange plastic chests that look like tackle boxes into the back of his pickup truck the other morning when his neighbor called
over, "Going fishing?"
"No," Bandlow answered, "going to punch some paper."
Bandlow was heading out to "punch some paper" full of bullet holes at his local rifle range. His neighbors and friends know he is 46 and single and a pilot for US Airways. Some know
of his volunteer work with children at the Catholic church he attends. A few know he is remodeling and renovating his Rockville home.
Not a lot of people know he owns more than 50 firearms--shotguns, rifles, revolvers and small automatics. That he loads his own cartridges for target shooting with special equipment in
his basement or that he studies ballistics the way some might track Orioles batting averages.
The possibility that someone, even a neighbor, would be a target shooter and gun owner is becoming an increasingly alien thought for many in contemporary suburban America. So,
Bandlow recalled, the neighbor looked confused.
He jumped into his truck and drove off, never explaining that the boxes were loaded with .308 bullets or that inside the black cases were custom-made rifles with shiny barrels that gleamed
like thin, chrome flagpoles.
Like a lot of gun owners, Bandlow says he admires the various designs, mechanics and engineering of his guns. He views them partly as an investment because high-quality,
well-maintained guns hold their value. He gets satisfaction from firing them accurately in the same way golfers do when they chip their balls on the green.
Bandlow does not keep his hobby a secret, but he hasn't advertised it, either. After all, there are the reactions from some who aren't quite sure what to make of it, like the fellow pilot who
once asked Bandlow, "Do the police know you do this?"
There are plenty of people like Bandlow. Another recent Saturday morning, after loading his rifles and ammunition in his truck, he joined more than 100 fellow shooters--including some
off-duty police officers--at the rifle range at Quantico Marine Base for a national competition attracting some of the country's best marksmen.
Bandlow is one of thousands of gun owners in Maryland, one of the 50,000 members of the National Rifle Association in a state where gun control has become a popular cause. Gov.
Parris N. Glendening (D) has just pushed through legislation making Maryland the first state to require built-in locks on handguns sold in the state. A statewide poll earlier this year
found that more than half of Marylanders would support a ban on handguns.
That is all happening against an evolving backdrop of school and workplace shootings that have pushed gun control to the top of the national agenda. The Million Mom March on
Mother's Day mobilized tens of thousands of gun control proponents who said they want to put new restrictions on gun ownership in America.
Their goal is to make guns safer, reduce accidental shootings and make it harder for criminals to get weapons. The reality, say gun owners like Bandlow, is that most of those efforts are
for naught and the only thing they will accomplish is make law-abiding gun owners--there are firearms in more than 40 percent of American households--jump through more hoops.
Bandlow is subject to many gun laws already, governing the types of guns he can buy and how often, and how he can transport them in his car. He has undergone background checks to
purchase handguns and believes all those laws have little effect on criminals who want guns. The increased regulation and the new wave of calls for even more have left him and other gun
owners feeling besieged and made them social outcasts.
"There's a prejudice or bigotry against the idea of private firearms ownership. Some would question the mental stability of someone who would want to do this. I've seen people recoil,"
Bandlow said. "People associate firearms with the Army, with war, with killing or with crime. They cannot make the association that you would want to take a military rifle and have fun
with it."
Bandlow has the lean, wiry frame of a former Navy pilot, which he is. This day, he is splayed on a padded mat at the Berwyn Rod and Gun Club in Prince George's County. It is hot, and
he is sweating inside a thickly quilted shooting jacket. The jacket is further padded at the elbows and at the right shoulder. His left hand is sheathed in a cushioned leather glove and
supports the barrel of his rifle. His left arm is braced in a leather sling.
The sling is attached to a M-1A rifle, which is a version of the M-14 military rifle used by U.S. troops at the beginning of Vietnam War and one of the most popular rifles in target
shooting competition. Bandlow's is 10 years old and comes with a 20-round magazine that is grandfathered under the federal law on assault weapons that now limits new rifles to 10
rounds.
With the rifle butt pressed tightly against his right shoulder, Bandlow squints through tinted glasses down the rifle's sight at a dinner plate-sized bulls-eye target 200 yards downrange. He
squeezes the trigger and the recoil is barely noticeable as the .308-caliber bullet flies at 2,600 feet per second downrange. From this distance the small hole ripped in the paper is barely
noticeable. It's easier to see the cloud of dirt kicked up in the embankment behind the target where the bullet strikes.
This is just about all Bandlow does with his guns. He is not a hunter. He sometimes shoots clay birds with his shotguns and likes to practice his aim with his handguns. He does not have
a permit to carry a concealed weapon, though he thinks those permits should be easily available, and said he views his guns as protection only as a "last resort."
But he is fascinated by their engineering, how in the right hands they can be precision tools that punch holes in the target just where the shooter wants them. He admires them as nearly
perfect pieces of machinery, whether they are the vintage 1897 Winchester pump action shotgun or the small Beretta .25-caliber pocket pistol or the custom-assembled target rifles he
shoots in competition.
"That's why I collect them. They have value, and they'll hold their value," he said. "It doesn't make sense to some people. It makes sense to me."
Earmuffs muffle the blasts so they are no louder than the sound of a baseball hitting a bat. After 10 shots, the air smells of gunpowder. Bandlow unstraps the rifle from his arm and, even
though no other shooters are at the range, puts out the red flag signaling others not to shoot as he trudges downrange to haul down his targets and see how well he has shot.
Nearly all the holes are in the 10-ring, close to the X in the middle of the target. Pretty good shooting for a fellow who only makes it to the range a couple of times a month.
"There is a connection between what I'm thinking and what happens downrange," he said. "Very slight errors will show up down there. It's mental training. It's self-discipline. It's voluntary
discipline while you're having fun."
When Bandlow returns to the firing line, he opens the molded black case containing one of his customized rifles. It sits in the case, strapped tightly against the foam padding. It is bolt
action, the stock is made of special plastic painted in camouflage and has an adjustable butt plate where it fits against his shoulder and cheek plate where he rests his face. It cost Bandlow
more than $1,500. Some shooters pay many times that for their guns.
This is the gun Bandlow primarily uses in competition. He has been studying various loads for the cartridges, experimenting with bullet shapes and the type and amount of gunpowder.
The variables affecting whether a bullet hits a target where the shooter wants it to are many. Bandlow has gone so far as to purchase sensors that he can place on the range and monitor on
a laptop computer to study the ballistics of the bullets he fires.
"It's a science," he said. "It's physics--the trajectory of the bullet, the gravity, the wind, the spin of the bullet. And it's chemistry--there's different types of powder that give you different
burning rates. You have to decide what's going to work best."
Bandlow said he feels safest at the range. There are strict rules about how to handle a gun and shooters police each other closely. "The most dangerous activity I do is driving my car back
and forth to the airport or driving to and from the range," he said.
He grew up with safety drilled into him. His father, now 81, is still a target shooter and started Bandlow as young boy firing a BB gun and pellet gun. He would not allow his son to even
point a toy gun at another person when neighborhood youngsters would play army in the back yard.
Banlow studied biology at the Citadel and then joined the Navy. He was slated for combat missions and unhappy with the .38-caliber revolver the Navy issued him, so he purchased a
9mm Browning. He had drifted away from shooting for a while, but the pistol's purchase prompted him to find a target range to begin shooting again.
He began to buy more guns. He now has special gun safes in his home to lock them up. One of his guns is an AR-15, the civilian version of the M-16 and another popular target rifle.
Bandlow's, purchased before the 1994 federal law restricting assault weapons, has a flash suppressor and could not be manufactured that way now.
"People say there is no reason for a civilian to have a weapon like that," he said. "I call it a service rifle. People don't make a distinction between good use and bad use. The immediate
response is you want that gun to go kill people."
Not long ago he and a friend were bird watching in a Montgomery County park and saw a bald eagle. They got a clearer view from a scope Bandlow had with him, and they loaned it to
another hiker who happened by so he could get a good look. But when Bandlow mentioned the scope was for watching targets at the rifle range, the hiker quickly passed it back to him
with a wary expression.
Bandlow said he even gets question from his mother, who asks him what he thinks about the stern pro-gun pronouncements from NRA President Charlton Heston. (He thinks they're just
fine.) Despite watching him grow up under the tutelage of his safety-conscious father, he said his mother is swayed by news media reports of gun violence and accidents that he believes
focus on the firearms and not the actions of the shooters. More good would come from less glorification of guns in movies and entertainment than in stricter laws, he said.
While recent shootings like Columbine and the killing of a schoolgirl in Michigan by a classmate are horrible tragedies, Bandlow said, they have created an atmosphere in which legislators
are making laws based on emotions rather than rationality.
While he has lobbied his legislators in the past, Bandlow said he doesn't have much time for that now. He said he is just a regular guy who has a job and his home renovations, and he
likes to spend his free time just shooting rather than worrying about new laws. But he's beginning to think he and other gun owners have no choice but to fight back.
"I'd prefer a million moms at the range, providing safety instruction to them. If they chose not to own a firearm, fine. If you get people to think properly they won't want gun control,"
Bandlow said. When it comes to fights over gun control, "the people who own guns have to win all the time. The people who want restrictions only have to win once."
© 2000 The Washington Post Company
By Daniel LeDuc
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 31, 2000 ; B01
Bill Bandlow was loading the two long black cases and the orange plastic chests that look like tackle boxes into the back of his pickup truck the other morning when his neighbor called
over, "Going fishing?"
"No," Bandlow answered, "going to punch some paper."
Bandlow was heading out to "punch some paper" full of bullet holes at his local rifle range. His neighbors and friends know he is 46 and single and a pilot for US Airways. Some know
of his volunteer work with children at the Catholic church he attends. A few know he is remodeling and renovating his Rockville home.
Not a lot of people know he owns more than 50 firearms--shotguns, rifles, revolvers and small automatics. That he loads his own cartridges for target shooting with special equipment in
his basement or that he studies ballistics the way some might track Orioles batting averages.
The possibility that someone, even a neighbor, would be a target shooter and gun owner is becoming an increasingly alien thought for many in contemporary suburban America. So,
Bandlow recalled, the neighbor looked confused.
He jumped into his truck and drove off, never explaining that the boxes were loaded with .308 bullets or that inside the black cases were custom-made rifles with shiny barrels that gleamed
like thin, chrome flagpoles.
Like a lot of gun owners, Bandlow says he admires the various designs, mechanics and engineering of his guns. He views them partly as an investment because high-quality,
well-maintained guns hold their value. He gets satisfaction from firing them accurately in the same way golfers do when they chip their balls on the green.
Bandlow does not keep his hobby a secret, but he hasn't advertised it, either. After all, there are the reactions from some who aren't quite sure what to make of it, like the fellow pilot who
once asked Bandlow, "Do the police know you do this?"
There are plenty of people like Bandlow. Another recent Saturday morning, after loading his rifles and ammunition in his truck, he joined more than 100 fellow shooters--including some
off-duty police officers--at the rifle range at Quantico Marine Base for a national competition attracting some of the country's best marksmen.
Bandlow is one of thousands of gun owners in Maryland, one of the 50,000 members of the National Rifle Association in a state where gun control has become a popular cause. Gov.
Parris N. Glendening (D) has just pushed through legislation making Maryland the first state to require built-in locks on handguns sold in the state. A statewide poll earlier this year
found that more than half of Marylanders would support a ban on handguns.
That is all happening against an evolving backdrop of school and workplace shootings that have pushed gun control to the top of the national agenda. The Million Mom March on
Mother's Day mobilized tens of thousands of gun control proponents who said they want to put new restrictions on gun ownership in America.
Their goal is to make guns safer, reduce accidental shootings and make it harder for criminals to get weapons. The reality, say gun owners like Bandlow, is that most of those efforts are
for naught and the only thing they will accomplish is make law-abiding gun owners--there are firearms in more than 40 percent of American households--jump through more hoops.
Bandlow is subject to many gun laws already, governing the types of guns he can buy and how often, and how he can transport them in his car. He has undergone background checks to
purchase handguns and believes all those laws have little effect on criminals who want guns. The increased regulation and the new wave of calls for even more have left him and other gun
owners feeling besieged and made them social outcasts.
"There's a prejudice or bigotry against the idea of private firearms ownership. Some would question the mental stability of someone who would want to do this. I've seen people recoil,"
Bandlow said. "People associate firearms with the Army, with war, with killing or with crime. They cannot make the association that you would want to take a military rifle and have fun
with it."
Bandlow has the lean, wiry frame of a former Navy pilot, which he is. This day, he is splayed on a padded mat at the Berwyn Rod and Gun Club in Prince George's County. It is hot, and
he is sweating inside a thickly quilted shooting jacket. The jacket is further padded at the elbows and at the right shoulder. His left hand is sheathed in a cushioned leather glove and
supports the barrel of his rifle. His left arm is braced in a leather sling.
The sling is attached to a M-1A rifle, which is a version of the M-14 military rifle used by U.S. troops at the beginning of Vietnam War and one of the most popular rifles in target
shooting competition. Bandlow's is 10 years old and comes with a 20-round magazine that is grandfathered under the federal law on assault weapons that now limits new rifles to 10
rounds.
With the rifle butt pressed tightly against his right shoulder, Bandlow squints through tinted glasses down the rifle's sight at a dinner plate-sized bulls-eye target 200 yards downrange. He
squeezes the trigger and the recoil is barely noticeable as the .308-caliber bullet flies at 2,600 feet per second downrange. From this distance the small hole ripped in the paper is barely
noticeable. It's easier to see the cloud of dirt kicked up in the embankment behind the target where the bullet strikes.
This is just about all Bandlow does with his guns. He is not a hunter. He sometimes shoots clay birds with his shotguns and likes to practice his aim with his handguns. He does not have
a permit to carry a concealed weapon, though he thinks those permits should be easily available, and said he views his guns as protection only as a "last resort."
But he is fascinated by their engineering, how in the right hands they can be precision tools that punch holes in the target just where the shooter wants them. He admires them as nearly
perfect pieces of machinery, whether they are the vintage 1897 Winchester pump action shotgun or the small Beretta .25-caliber pocket pistol or the custom-assembled target rifles he
shoots in competition.
"That's why I collect them. They have value, and they'll hold their value," he said. "It doesn't make sense to some people. It makes sense to me."
Earmuffs muffle the blasts so they are no louder than the sound of a baseball hitting a bat. After 10 shots, the air smells of gunpowder. Bandlow unstraps the rifle from his arm and, even
though no other shooters are at the range, puts out the red flag signaling others not to shoot as he trudges downrange to haul down his targets and see how well he has shot.
Nearly all the holes are in the 10-ring, close to the X in the middle of the target. Pretty good shooting for a fellow who only makes it to the range a couple of times a month.
"There is a connection between what I'm thinking and what happens downrange," he said. "Very slight errors will show up down there. It's mental training. It's self-discipline. It's voluntary
discipline while you're having fun."
When Bandlow returns to the firing line, he opens the molded black case containing one of his customized rifles. It sits in the case, strapped tightly against the foam padding. It is bolt
action, the stock is made of special plastic painted in camouflage and has an adjustable butt plate where it fits against his shoulder and cheek plate where he rests his face. It cost Bandlow
more than $1,500. Some shooters pay many times that for their guns.
This is the gun Bandlow primarily uses in competition. He has been studying various loads for the cartridges, experimenting with bullet shapes and the type and amount of gunpowder.
The variables affecting whether a bullet hits a target where the shooter wants it to are many. Bandlow has gone so far as to purchase sensors that he can place on the range and monitor on
a laptop computer to study the ballistics of the bullets he fires.
"It's a science," he said. "It's physics--the trajectory of the bullet, the gravity, the wind, the spin of the bullet. And it's chemistry--there's different types of powder that give you different
burning rates. You have to decide what's going to work best."
Bandlow said he feels safest at the range. There are strict rules about how to handle a gun and shooters police each other closely. "The most dangerous activity I do is driving my car back
and forth to the airport or driving to and from the range," he said.
He grew up with safety drilled into him. His father, now 81, is still a target shooter and started Bandlow as young boy firing a BB gun and pellet gun. He would not allow his son to even
point a toy gun at another person when neighborhood youngsters would play army in the back yard.
Banlow studied biology at the Citadel and then joined the Navy. He was slated for combat missions and unhappy with the .38-caliber revolver the Navy issued him, so he purchased a
9mm Browning. He had drifted away from shooting for a while, but the pistol's purchase prompted him to find a target range to begin shooting again.
He began to buy more guns. He now has special gun safes in his home to lock them up. One of his guns is an AR-15, the civilian version of the M-16 and another popular target rifle.
Bandlow's, purchased before the 1994 federal law restricting assault weapons, has a flash suppressor and could not be manufactured that way now.
"People say there is no reason for a civilian to have a weapon like that," he said. "I call it a service rifle. People don't make a distinction between good use and bad use. The immediate
response is you want that gun to go kill people."
Not long ago he and a friend were bird watching in a Montgomery County park and saw a bald eagle. They got a clearer view from a scope Bandlow had with him, and they loaned it to
another hiker who happened by so he could get a good look. But when Bandlow mentioned the scope was for watching targets at the rifle range, the hiker quickly passed it back to him
with a wary expression.
Bandlow said he even gets question from his mother, who asks him what he thinks about the stern pro-gun pronouncements from NRA President Charlton Heston. (He thinks they're just
fine.) Despite watching him grow up under the tutelage of his safety-conscious father, he said his mother is swayed by news media reports of gun violence and accidents that he believes
focus on the firearms and not the actions of the shooters. More good would come from less glorification of guns in movies and entertainment than in stricter laws, he said.
While recent shootings like Columbine and the killing of a schoolgirl in Michigan by a classmate are horrible tragedies, Bandlow said, they have created an atmosphere in which legislators
are making laws based on emotions rather than rationality.
While he has lobbied his legislators in the past, Bandlow said he doesn't have much time for that now. He said he is just a regular guy who has a job and his home renovations, and he
likes to spend his free time just shooting rather than worrying about new laws. But he's beginning to think he and other gun owners have no choice but to fight back.
"I'd prefer a million moms at the range, providing safety instruction to them. If they chose not to own a firearm, fine. If you get people to think properly they won't want gun control,"
Bandlow said. When it comes to fights over gun control, "the people who own guns have to win all the time. The people who want restrictions only have to win once."
© 2000 The Washington Post Company
