Gun Control? Shades of Grey?

 

Want to cause a stir?  It only takes two words.  “Gun Control.”

Mention gun control and you’ll see American folks display their most Borderline Personality traits.

“You’ll have to pry this gun out of my cold, dead hands.”

“The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to have a good guy with a gun.”

“My kids aren’t allowed to play with guns.”

“Who shoots deer with a bushmaster?”

“Guns don’t kill people.  People kill people.”

You can think of more slogans.

 

My husband shouts at our tv about his rights to own guns.  He wants to protect us from government thugs.  He hopes things will play out just long enough to buy a few more.

 

If you asked me, and you didn’t, I’d tell you that by the time I got to the family gun, the intruder would be on his way out the front door with whatever he came for to begin with.

 

However, if I did manage to lay hands on the gun, load it, aim it and by some bizarre quirk of fate, shot this intruder, he would be covered under our home insurance.  Our insurance would pay his hospital bill.

 

Here is a question I have to ask.  Why do you need more guns than you have hands?

 

The government thugs, whoever they are, would have to find our house in order to do whatever it is gun owners imagine happening.  FedEx and UPS drivers have to draw little maps on our packages.

 

Gun Control?

 

What a sticky wicket.

 

I don’t think having a good guy toting a gun at schools, shopping malls and movie theaters is a good idea.  Can you imagine a just certified teacher being asked at a job interview if she is prepared to make an instant judgment and end the life of a student or stranger with a gun?  Good guys are only good guys until they snap.  How do we know our good guy passed his background check simply because he hasn’t been caught, yet?  How do we know if a member of his family or one of his friends might lift his gun for a little recreation?  How do we prevent grandpa from gifting the family gun to one of his teen aged grandkids?

 

Defining people as good guys or bad guys is black and white, right, wrong, all in and very borderline.  Who knows if the good guy is going to freeze up or even hide when someone pulls a firearm?  What if the good guy has a bad aim?  How do you spot the bad guy?  All quiet folks who keep to themselves would qualify.  Every hormonal teen with anger issues is suspect.  When is the cell-phone stalker going to cross a line?

 

My first experience with a gun happened when my dad ran my mom into the bedroom with his handgun.  My brother whacked him in the back of the head with a coke bottle.  In turn, my dad pistil whipped him.  The next thing I know, my mom is at the sink cleaning my dad’s head and shouting at my brother to go hide the gun before the cops got there.

 

He used to bring that gun out on odd nights and keep us awake with threats to use it.  But, as far as I know, he never went on a killing spree.  He never got around to killing us.  And no one ever thought of him as the quiet guy who kept to himself.

 

Gun Control.

 

There is no middle ground on this one or I would have written myself into it by now.

 

Somewhere in my house is a book that touches on the making of guns.  They are supposed to be a very good delivery system for bullets.  They are mostly designed to stop a threat quickly and cause the least amount of collateral damage.

 

I know folks hunt, go target shooting and fight wars.  I know there have been times in my own life that a gun might have been very handy.

 

Gun Control?

 

I still want to be sure everyone likes me so I am not going to take a side….

 

Till next time, don’t touch anything sharp….

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