I have three sons. None of them was allowed to have a toy gun. That didn't mean they wouldn't fashion one out of a tree branch or other material, but I absolutely refused to intentionally provide them with a device that could kill. (Also, my daughter didn't get a Barbie until she graduated from college, but that's a Blix for another day...)
Why would anyone want their child to even pretend to shoot somebody? Maybe it was Vietnam. Maybe it was our own fathers with too-fresh memories of World War II. Maybe it was a past life thing. Maybe it was the television Westerns of my youth...why were the Indians always the bad guys, anyway? My kids pouted, but I held firm. No. Guns. Period. They got older and learned to fish. All was well.
Time passed. Columbine happened. The country was horrified...for awhile. And now, over time, hundreds of children, students, movie-goers, concert-goers, mall-goers, and party-goers have been murdered. Could there have been anything more tragic than those first-graders at Newtown?
Apparently not a concern. At least not to Congress. Look at this map of the 1,042 mass shootings since Sandy Hook. Don't even think of giving me the lame and offensive platitude about how spoons being responsible for obesity is the same as guns being responsible for massacres.
I have continued to be outraged at the lack of congressional response to the ongoing slaughter of innocent people. Like many of you, I have called my representative, signed petitions, written letters to the editor. Here's my current congressman's stance, taken from his website: "Gun ownership is a birthright in America. As a proud member of the NRA, I will support legislation that protects our 2nd Amendment rights."
When I moved to Florida, I got a first-hand baptism to a different way of thinking. First came a co-worker whose daughter would be celebrating her fourteenth birthday soon. What does every soon-to-be high school freshman girl want? Why, her own gun license, of course! "I want her to learn to defend herself," her mother explained, to my obvious lack of understanding. She spoke to me s-l-o-w-l-y, since clearly I was the Doofus from another planet.
What came next was even more astounding. "Great news! If you can get four people together, 'they' (The Police Department? The Sheriff? The FBI? Guns R Us?) will come to your house, do the training, and you can get a license to carry a concealed weapon." WHAT???? Like a Tupperware party? With snacks, wine, and prizes? Yep, two other colleagues were super excited to hear this news. (Did I mention that I was working at a major university?)
I've been slow in recognizing the power of the NRA, one of the three most powerful lobbying groups in Washington. It's got to be about more than just the Second Amendment. I don't pretend to be an expert in constitutional law. But I do know the scent of power when I smell it. And I know unnecessary loss of life when I see it. (Click here to see NRA campaign contributions and how 80% of their candidates were elected. Maybe even one of yours. You will understand why gun control is not changing anytime soon...)
It's my understanding that our Founding Fathers included the Second Amendment for individuals in a state militia--a collective purpose--not for zealots to haul their semi-automatic weapons into Billy-Bob's Diner. Nevertheless, the state of Georgia now permits anyone over 18 to carry a gun into a public place: restaurants, churches, bars, even the Hartfield-Jackson airport--the busiest in the world.
Where will it end? Maybe a better question: Will it ever end? When Joe the Plumber can say, one day after the University of California Santa Barbara shooting: "Your dead kids don't trump my Constitutional rights..." we are all diminished.
And maybe all in danger.
Please just take your kids fishing. Please.
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