Guns are part of Arkansas culture

JONESBORO, Ark. - Freeman Brewer, a farmer who has owned guns most of his sixty-odd years, is perplexed by news reports all but blaming last week's schoolyard killings here on the fact that the two young shooters had access to family guns.

This is a state where 300,000 hunting licenses are issued and a region where guns seem as commonplace as cell phones. "It's not like what they're saying," said Brewer, standing by a pickup truck outside a local convenience store. "I raised two boys and taught them how to hunt and handle and respect a gun. We've got deer and turkey, and we've got hunting laws to be obeyed."

This part of the country - which includes states such as Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas - has an attitude toward guns that is seldom seen, and even more rarely understood, in urban and more heavily populated areas. This is not a place where guns are normally associated with the incomprehensible violence that struck here a week ago. It is a place where guns are seen as point of pride, fellowship, fun and tradition.

Last week, 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson and 11-year-old Andrew Golden - both raised around guns - opened fire on their schoolmates at Westside Middle School, killing four girls and a teacher. They used seven handguns and three high-powered hunting rifles, mostly stolen from Golden's grandfather, an avid hunter.

The tragedy focused attention once again on U.S. attitudes toward guns and their effect on the young. Conversations with people here, however, provided a reminder that those attitudes can differ radically depending on where people live and what tradition they spring from.

Westside Middle School sits on the fringe of Jonesboro, on a rolling, rural road far from the crowded streets of Washington or New York. It is surrounded by brick ramblers and trailer homes on wide swaths of land separated by acres of pastures and creeks. No liquor is served here - Craighead County is dry.

Guns, parents here say, are neither a novelty nor something evil. It is not uncommon to see youngsters wearing camouflage T-shirts given to them by their daddies for hunting, guns sold in pawn shops and signs in restaurants windows politely asking patrons to leave their guns in their cars.

Residents say that even those unsettling photographs of young "Drew" Golden - barely past toddler age and holding a rifle - are not an uncommon sort of thing for those growing up in a culture where guns are a way of life.

04-02-98