I grew up in a house with guns; a pistol and a shotgun. My parents kept them in their bedroom. These weapons were generally never loaded. My father maintained that they were for protecting our home in the event of a break-in. We joked that he’d never be able to find the bullets or shells and load the weapon in time to actually defend us. We also knew never to touch any of it. There were no gun fails in our house.
In high school, I learned to shoot a rifle. It was part of a P.E. class. I was never good at physical activity. I was the smallest and shortest kid in my class. Basketball was definitely not my sport. I could hit a softball, but not very far. I couldn’t catch or throw very well. It also didn’t help being a girl, so I was always picked last for any team sport. But shooting? I could shoot. I had good aim and always hit the target somewhere near the bulls-eye. I remember watching the Olympics once and thinking I could have trained, maybe even made the team.
Still, I have no real love of guns. I don’t own one. I don’t plan to own one. They are part of my past, but I don’t foresee them as part of my future.
In 1987, my father was diagnosed with cancer. What type I never really found out. My father had smoked for over 40 years. He started as a young teen. He once told me about the experience of that first cigarette. I didn’t really understand why he tried a second. But after 2 heart attacks, he quit. No program, no patches, he just stopped. He seemed healthy and happy until that diagnosis. The doctors told him he could have surgery or no surgery. Having surgery gave him only slightly better odds of survival that not. He chose the surgery. My father was a different man afterwards. He spoke little, ate little, and did little. He was deeply depressed and just existed for months.
And so, on a warm afternoon in September, he found those bullets, loaded that pistol, and fired one shot to the head. My mother called that night to tell me that my father was dead. Killed by his own hand. For years after, she would recount that day, painting a picture for anyone listening. She would start with how they got up that day to eat breakfast and then went out to the store together. After lunch, he announced he was going to take a nap. My mother went about doing chores around the house until she heard that shot ringing through the house. She detailed the call for help; the pronouncement of death. Her story had way more details, including what if he had intended to kill them both.
So on that day, a gun, not cancer, killed my father. But it also killed a husband, a brother, an uncle, a grandfather, a church member, a neighbor, a cousin, a friend. It nearly destroyed my mother. A woman of great strength. We were all preparing to part with him at some future time because of the cancer. But the gun created an abrupt departure. No warning, no explanations, no goodbye. A shocking end to the man we deeply loved. It destroyed my mother’s prospect of any more time with a man to whom she had been married over 50 years. It destroyed my opportunity to have my father walk me down the aisle on my wedding day that should have been that fall. It destroyed the joy in my family for a long time.
Yes, my father killed himself. And even if there had been no gun he may have found another way to do it. But still, it shapes my views about guns.
The gun was created with death in mind. Whether you use one to kill an animal or a person. That is its main function. It can’t get you from point A to point B like a car. It can’t help you prepare a meal like a knife. It is a destroyer of life. It destroys flesh and spirit. It destroys our sense of well-being and safety. Maybe not all of us and maybe not completely. But with each incident, one killed or 50 killed, we feel a little less sure, less secure, less comfortable, less trusting, less accepting, just less. We second guess our every action. Should I go to the mall, the movies, the church, to school, to a university or college, to work or any place where there is a public space and people are there that I don’t know or maybe I do?
We also talk about how some shooter should not have had a gun. Yes, we can always see what should not have happened when we are trying to explain what just happened. And we talk and talk until the conversation comes back to everybody should be able to get a gun whenever and wherever. Because the more guns we have, the safer we will feel? We talk about how laws don’t stop criminals from getting guns. But, that is by definition a criminal. Somebody who failed to follow some law. And again, that has not kept us from writing new laws on things that don’t involve guns. If everybody followed every law, prisons would be empty, or maybe we wouldn’t have any. So that argument makes no sense to me.
I agree with the House Democrats in general and Congressman John Lewis in particular. The time for silence is over. If we keep speaking up and speaking out, maybe one day we will recognize the full reading of the 2nd Amendment and not just the abbreviated version. Maybe we will consider its history, but deal with the time in which we live. Maybe one day, we will remember that the Constitution has many other Amendments. And maybe, just maybe, this out-sized regard for the 2nd Amendment will hold the same regard as the rest of them.