I grew up with guns. More of them can never stop the violence.

Jim Rothblatt
·2 min read
15

Guns, guns, guns, we will never have enough guns.

I’m a 79-year-old American male, so of course I’m interested in guns. I grew up in the '40’s and '50s watching movies and TV shows while the good guys and the bad guys shot it out.

In elementary school I attended a “well-regulated militia,” a military academy, and every day we practiced close order drills with 1903 Springfield rifles.

During that time America, Russia and other countries began developing and stockpiling bigger and better nuclear weapons as “deterrents” to war. Obviously, we hoard weapons so we can feel safe.

As a 12-year-old, I got my first gun when I joined the Boy Scouts of America, not quite a “well-regulated militia,” but close enough; we wore uniforms. We got to practice shooting at targets.

Then along came the Vietnam war.

Jim Rothblatt in a Buddhist pagoda in Vietnam in 1967. He was serving as a combat medic with Charlie Company, 4th Battalion/12th Infantry, 199th Light Infantry Brigade.
Jim Rothblatt in a Buddhist pagoda in Vietnam in 1967. He was serving as a combat medic with Charlie Company, 4th Battalion/12th Infantry, 199th Light Infantry Brigade.

Like my father and my uncles and millions of other Americans before me, I got my chance to serve in an actual “well-regulated militia.” I joined the Army.

The Army issued me a M-16. It’s like an AR-15, but better. With the flip of a selector switch, it can be fired like a machine gun and empty a 20-round magazine of high velocity bullets in less than two seconds.

As a combat medic, I was attached to an infantry rifle company. I was an up close and personal witness to what bullets and other weapons of war do to human flesh. It was part of my job to have the blood and flesh of the men I served with embedded in my uniform until the next rain or stream crossing. It was ugly, and it changed me forever.

Then on Aug. 1, 1967, still in Vietnam, I was witness to a murder.

Death by combat is the job of a “well-regulated militia,” but murder impacted me as something worse. It’s so personal. The circumstances of the murder convinced me that we can never have enough guns.

We were two companies, and we were forming up on a landing zone into small groups to board choppers. Two of the soldiers got into an argument and one opened fire, point-blank on fully automatic. The other soldier went from a man to meat before he could even fall to the ground.

Three others were seriously wounded by bullets passing through the victim’s body as he fell to the ground.

We were two infantry companies of men heavily armed for war, but maybe, if there only had been more guns, maybe it wouldn’t have happened?

How many more guns would we have needed?

How many more nuclear weapons do we need?

Jim Rothblatt lives in Palm Springs.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Gun violence won't stop with more guns | Column