A Kid With A Machine Gun
by Philip Goutell

© 2023 Philip Goutell

Boys like guns. I liked guns when I was a kid. I once knew a couple whose plan, as advanced social thinkers, was to raise their son gun-free. No toy guns, no weapons of war toys. He was plotted for a no gun, no war, no violence childhood and they they were exasperated when they discovered he had made a toy gun from a block of wood, or a tree branch, or from bits of plastic glued together. It seems they had lost the anti-gun battle to little-boy nature.

Growing up, there were lots of guns around and I didn't grow up in hunting territory. No, it was a quiet, affluent, suburban village. Guns had come back from Germany, guns had come back from the South Pacific. My uncles and cousins had guns. I wanted a gun.

Let me be clear. Nobody I knew had the least desire to shoot anyone. Nor did we live in fear of our neighbors. The only shooting we engaged in was playing cowboy with cap guns. But at times we did handle real guns and, as the teenage years approached, for me the desire to possess a real gun became stronger.

Two of our neighbors had guns. In the attic of the house next to us was a rack of revolving cylinder rifles - probably rare and certainly valuable. They were just stored in the attic and, though I saw them, I didn't touch them. I knew nothing about them, how they came to be there and their history. I've never seen a single revolving cylinder rifle since, and this was a collection.

Another neighbor had guns, military guns, some of which we could handle. There were Japanese rifles that seemed so long and heavy I couldn't imagine holding one up to shoot. I also remember a small caliber Winchester lever action which broke down into two pieces. I thought it was pretty cool.

My friend and I did find some stray ammunition in his house but we never found a gun to go with it.

My friend also had deactivated guns in his bedroom, a Japanese pistol, chromed and turned into a bedside lamp, and a chromed, deactivated, Japanese machine gun.

Sometime during my early teenage years I finally got a chance to shoot a real gun, a .22, at summer camp. Then, at a friend's place in the country, a .22 I had by then inherited from an older cousin. But I didn't have any place I could go and shoot regularly.

I acquired a beautiful old Winchester '92 (.44-40) from an antique shop. I think my mother felt that an antique gun couldn't really shoot. My father probably thought it would be impossible to find ammunition for such and old gun. They were both wrong.

In retrospect, I don't know how this even happened. My father, having grown up in New York City, was not keen on guns, in fact he was very anti-gun. Yet I had no money so my parents must have not only approved but financed this purchase. Today, it's hard for me to understand why they did this. I certainly didn't need a gun. And I had no place to shoot. That, perhaps, was what sealed the deal. I began to build a gun collection. It really wasn't that hard.

I purchased my first pistol on a college scouting expedition with my mother. We were in Maine and, at my request, had stopped at a gun shop. When the owner informed us that, in Maine, anyone sixteen or older could buy a pistol I said, "thank you, I'll have one." It wasn't illegal until I brought it back to New York State where, to possess a pistol, you had to be twenty-one or older and have a permit. Pistol permits weren't easy to get and I had a long way to go before I would be twenty-one.

The gun was a German Luger. The original wooden grips had been replaced with plastic grips. Maybe that's why it was quite affordable but I think my mother paid. No mention was made of bullets. I guess I didn't want to push my luck but, back at home it didn't take me long to get my hands on a sup[ply of 9mm ammo. (Years later, when guns were no longer in my life, a friend showed me a 9mm bullet. I didn't recognize what it was and hardly believed it was real, it seemed so small!)

Some time later a distant relative, seeking to rid herself of two German handguns her late husband had brought back from the war, gave them to me. My mother had suggested it. One was a Luger with a holster, all in perfect condition. The other was a small, point-something-millimeter automatic. I did the math and found it should take a .32 auto bullet quite comfortably, and it did.

I purchased a British Enfield .303 jungle carbine by mail order. I recall not yet having a checking account (too young!) so I just stuffed cash — bills and coins — into an envelope and mailed it. The gun arrived by Railway Express. I also seem to remember having one, or possibly two, M1911 army .45s, although I can't recall where I got them. I did become pretty competent at disassembling and reassembling them though I never tried it blindfolded. (When I handled the monthly payroll in Vietnam, our Colonel lent me his .45. It had a very familiar feel to it.)

In all this I really had no place to go shooting and, while guns were relatively cheap, ammunition was expensive. I was limited in what I could afford so I never had hundreds of rounds in my closet. I couldn't afford it.

When I was around eighteen I had a summer job in New Hampshire. I brought some of my guns with me but, in reality, didn't do any shooting. I did meet someone who was into guns, for target shooting. I don't think he was a hunter but he did express some concern about the Russians coming over the pole to invade New Hampshire. If it should happen, he felt a gun would be useful.

One day my friend told me he had gotten a job overseas. He was an electronics technician and, for him, this was an opportunity. He would be going to a lonely place but I think he lived a bit of a lonely life so, for him, this would be a good match. Then he told me that before leaving the country he wanted to sell two submachine guns.

Then as now, machine guns were pretty illegal but, as a kid, you're more concerned with the cool factor than the legalities. Except for the handguns, none of my rifles were even semi-automatic. Full auto struck me as very cool.

The guns were a Thompson and a Beretta, .45 caliber and 9mm respectively. He wanted $75 for the tommy gun and $50 for the Beretta. Seventy-five dollars was too much for my wallet but I was able to come up with $50 and I bought the Beretta. Today I wish I had come up with just a bit more and taken the Thompson, just for the experience.

The Beretta, an Italian military weapon, had two triggers, one for semi-automatic and one for full auto. The magazine held twenty rounds. I tried to get an additional magazine but couldn't. This was long before the internet.

I had it for a while before I ever got a chance, and the nerve, to fire it. When I finally loaded up the magazine and headed out to some remote woods, the sound immediately said "full auto." Anyone within earshot would know what was going one and — this may surprise you — I was not looking for trouble. I just wanted to bit of confirmation for my purchase, to knew it was real, and it was.

I must have had the Beretta for four or five years but never fired it again. Nor in those years did I have much of a chance to shoot any of my guns. When I joined the army after college, I gave my whole gun collection away. I figured that if the army wanted me to have a gun they would give me one — and they did — and I don't recall ever firing it.