Now the 49-year-old writer stood in what he half-jokingly referred to as “enemy territory” — a gun range in the gun-loving state of Virginia — and listened to an instructor named CJ lay out the rules. In a nation plagued by gun violence, in a state scarred by mass shootings and bitterly divided over how to prevent them, would firing a weapon help Karns heal — or inflict more damage? ADADA month earlier, two men had killed themselves at the same gun range in a span of five days. Sitting on a couch in Boyles’s office, Karns told his therapist he was planning to go to a gun range to confront his fears and overcome them. Yet he also feared that the gun range was too much, too soon.

Source: Washington Post October 16, 2020 12:56 UTC