Guns…
I kill people with them…in my books! My detectives Chen and Castilblanco have guns because the lowlifes they face in their cases have them. Guns are among the “props” in many of my stories. I write mysteries, thrillers, and sci-fi, and I use these props when writing in all those genres.
Although I’m against automatic and semi-automatic weapons and large-capacity magazines being available to the general public—they belong in the military and not in John Q. Public’s hands—I think reasonable gun control can be legislated so people can own the non-military weapons in a regulated fashion.
Emphasis is on “reasonable.” What we have now is chaos, with some states allowing free and open carry even of military style weapons, others not, and there’s no uniformity in background checks to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill or insane individuals wanting to kill anyone who disagrees with them. There’s no Second Amendment right to kill people (that was only intended by our Founding Fathers to keep the militias armed—they are, and they’re called National Guards nowadays).
Even in NYC where Chen and Castilblanco hang out, with its tough gun laws, my detectives have to confront a lot of firepower. That reflects the reality real cops have to face. The “bad guys” often seem to be better armed than the “good guys,” even in real life. And, as Castilblanco points out a few times, a bad buy in NYC can buy a weapon from a “dealer” aka gun smuggler who’s selling a trunkful of weapons he’s “imported” from a state with lax gun laws. Gun regulations must be federal and tough—to hell with states’ rights in this case.
While guns are props in my stories, only Teeter-Totter between Lust and Murder focuses on the illegal gun trade…for now. In that Chen and Castilblanco tale, Chen is accused of murdering her senator-boyfriend with a gun—the murder weapon is her own she kept in her apartment. The illegal gun trade is a big deal, of course, nationally and internationally. Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden combats it in my new mystery/thriller, Son of Thunder, soon to be released by Penmore Press (the son of thunder is the disciple St. John the Divine—now there’s a twist that might whet your reading appetite). But the illegal gun trade almost seems irrelevant in the US considering that anyone can buy a gun from a friend, or at a gun show, or order it online without any background checks.
I grew up with guns. My father used them and respected them and taught me to do the same—he was once dispatcher for the Tulare County Sheriff’s Department (California) until the stress made him quit. He used guns for hunting, and he taught me how to shoot. I inherited my grandfather’s rifle and shotgun because I’d carried my .22 single-shot rifle to Kansas the summer I spent with him—the old man was impressed with my marksmanship (not a big deal—his eyesight was failing, so it wasn’t hard for me to knock down more tin cans!). I sold all three guns to a gun collector because my kids often had a lot of friends over, and I didn’t want to risk a tragedy in my household—gun tragedies involving kids are the most terrible ones and are mostly avoidable…if gun owners are responsible.
My father’s early life in Kansas served as a model for the first chapter of Survivors of the Chaos. He grew up in another era, of course, because early twentieth century Kansas wasn’t all that different from 1860s Kansas. He would be aghast nowadays with all the mass shootings and the plethora of high-powered weapons in America. He’d never be a member of the NRA either, for many reasons. One certainly would have been that he hated powerful lobbies who distort democracy by turning Congress members and other pols into their lackeys.
Yes, I kill people with guns in my stories. I remember one reviewer stating after reading Aristocrats and Assassins that he (she? who knows?) was shocked when I killed off one main character, definitely one of the “good gals,” although that could be debatable depending on your opinions about current Middle East tensions. (That novel has ambivalence as a theme—even the terrorist’s Palestinian background warped him, and with good reason!) That main character who spanned two novels was killed in a gunfight. I almost killed Interpol agent Hal Leonard too in Angels Need Not Apply, but lucky for him I saved him so he could appear in other novels in my detective series, and in Son of Thunder, which is a spin-off.
I don’t want to glorify gun violence, and I’d rather you not read my books because they have gun violence in them. There are more important themes treated therein, albeit not as lethal most of the time. But I don’t think I could write stories like mine without some gun violence—the good (guns in the hands of the good guys), the bad (guns in the hands of the bad guys), and the ugly (people who make a living selling death). Moreover, we authors have a responsibility to show that reasonable gun control is necessary with the stories we write.
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Comments are always welcome.
“Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series.” Their homicide cases often go from local to national and international—for example, Gaia and the Goliaths. In this seventh book of the series, the homicide case of an environmental activist leads to the discovery of an international conspiracy perpetrated by a US energy conglomerate and a Russian oligarch. Bastiann van Coevorden, Interpol agent and paramour of Esther Brookstone in Rembrandt’s Angel, has a cameo in the novel. And the villain of the first book in the series, The Midas Bomb, continues to play a nefarious role. But which side is he really on? Lots of entertaining reading for mystery, crime, and suspense fans! Available on Amazon and Smashwords and at all the latter’s affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.).
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
