Hit me with your best shot

The Newtown massacre has really got to me.

I haven't cried over a news story - as in real sobbing with tears - since 9/11. The difference with this story is that I intentionally avoided all television news and video footage. I think being glued to the tv for days on end with 9/11 made it even more difficult to move forward so I intentionally made the decision last Friday to only read the news. I found out about the shootings on twitter and used that as well as CNN and BBC web feeds for my source. I did watch the NBC news that night but it was an abbreviated version of what I'm sure was going non-stop on cable news. Despite avoiding the videos, the interviews, and the gratuitous horror stories gleaned from interviews with mere children, I was able to feel quite a bit. I think being a parent makes it all too real - the idea of your child being fine one minute, and then for completely inexplicable reason, gone the next.

Today the NRA comes out with their "solution" to the problem. We just need trained folks armed with guns in the schools to protect our children. My first response is, "Seriously??? Give me a fucking break!" Then I sat and mused a bit on how my ideas on guns have changed in the past 25 years. I am far more moderate than I was as a 12 year old but I still would never give one dime to the NRA.

Let's first go back 26 years to junior high when eighth grade Jenn was giving her first ever persuasive speech for Language Arts class. It was a pro-gun control argument that I crafted all on my own. I honestly don't know where my pacifism/liberalism came from. I grew up in the country on a farm and politics were not a hot topic in my home at the time. My parents kept a shotgun in their closet though I'm pretty sure it was unloaded and the shells were kept elsewhere. My father did not hunt but we certainly knew people who did and were happy to partake of the deer jerky when a hunter got a deer in our timber. I don't remember hearing arguments for or against guns from my family, but my Great Uncle Glenn was a huge gun collector and my Great Uncle Gene was known to carry a pistol when he traveled across the country.

In the 80's, I was a fan of Reagan. I'm not quite sure why, but he seemed to mesmerize most of the country with his speeches. I remember being at a rally or speech he held at the Illinois State Fair grandstand while the crowd was chanting to repeal the 22nd amendment given that he was in his second term. It's funny to think that by 1988 I would be campaigning for Dukakis before I was even old enough to vote (yes, I even met him and got his signature) and would soon turn far away from the GOP.

Of course my views at this time were also shaped by the assassination attempt in 1981. Though I was only 7 & 1/2 when it happened, I remember it quite vividly. For some reason I was not in school that day and my Mom and I were in Springfield. I'm thinking I had a dentist appointment because it was a school day. We were in some department store like Montgomery Wards when it was announced over the PA system. We and most of the other shoppers headed to the electronics department where all of the televisions (those "massive" 19 inch screens in super fancy wooden consoles) were tuned to the broadcast discussing that someone had attempted to shoot President Reagan. I don't remember exactly how the rest of the day played out. I do recall my Mom talking about her memories of being in high school when President Kennedy was assassinated. I remember never feeling real fear that Reagan was going to die that evening though we now are aware that his injuries were in fact life threatening but the press never had full access to his medical condition. The big thing that came out of the incident was the devastating injuries to Press Secretary Jim Brady who had been shot in the head. That quickly became the main story - that and the crazy ass shooter who was trying to impress Jodie Foster.

The attempted assassination of President Reagan and the injuries sustained by Jim Brady truly fueled the gun control debate for the next decade.  It became a political hot topic and by 1987 when I was crafting my arguments for class, the Brady Bill had been introduced into Congress. It was obviously not an easy sell as it was not passed into law until 1993, long after I had graduate high school and moved on to college. I wish I had my handwritten note cards to look at now but I know that they had statistics on handgun deaths and a call for better background checks and the banning of certain weapons. I don't remember how the speech went over, I don't know what grade I received, but on my own I started thinking in a liberal Progressive way that would continue to this day two decades later.

My view on guns didn't change through college or my 20s. I never felt the need to own a gun and I frankly afraid of them. I never wanted a gun for my "safety" even after the house I was living in was burglarized in 1999. It happened when we were away for the weekend and came home to a smashed window, missing electronics and clothes all over the floor indicating that the thieve(s) had gone through all of our drawers.  I did have a sense of fear after that event, especially at night when my then boyfriend was out of town. Despite that fear, never once did I think of getting a weapon.  Later I moved to Colorado which is a sportsmans' paradise. I knew LOTS of people with guns, most used for hunting. I then moved to Missouri (also lots of hunters & guns) and remember having several good-natured arguments with a pro-gun friend. By this point in time, I still felt pretty strongly about gun control - especially in regards to handguns & assault rifles. I never had a problem however with my hunter friends who were responsible gun owners.

Then I moved to Arkansas.

For some reason things changed when I moved to Arkansas. Probably because for the first time in my life I dated and then married a "gun guy."  My husband does not hunt, but he does have personal defense weapons as well as a concealed carry permit. I don't remember when I learned this but it did make me VERY uncomfortable. I was freaked out when I learned that he was packing a 9mm on one of our earlier dates when we went hiking together in the afternoon.

Me, "You had your gun with you then??"
Him, " We were hiking, of course I did! That's why I was carrying a fanny pack."  
Me, "Holy shit! You could have been a crazy man and shot me, we barely knew each other."
Him, "That's why I didn't let you know I had it with me."

It seriously unnerved me to think that I had been hiking with someone I had only known two weeks who was carrying a gun. He could have killed me and left my body in Petit Jean and no one would have been the wiser. It NEVER occurred to me that someone I knew would have a concealed weapon, let alone be in the wilderness with me. It just bothered me - and I didn't even learn that he had that gun with him until months later when we were engaged. This showed that I definitely wasn't in the North anymore ... as well as explained the fanny pack he had been wearing.

My relationship with guns remained quite unchanged for the first year of our marriage. When we traveled, he always let me know if the gun was in the console. I knew where it was kept loaded and I stayed far away from that location. As a matter of fact, it became a bit of a joke around the house. If he ever wanted to hoard candy from me, he just stored it with the gun because he knew I was too afraid to look there.

At some point when our son was walking, I decided it was time that I learned how to handle the weapon. (For the record as soon as the kiddo became more mobile, the loaded gun was secured in an appropriate manner for a house with children while still being accessible for defense). We sat down on the kitchen table and I got my first lesson on dealing with a gun. I was afraid to touch the damn thing and I broke out in a sweat as I cleared the chamber.  Even handling the bullets and putting them into the clip made me very nervous. "Should we have bullets on the table with Gremlin in the next room? Can they go off if I drop them? Don't let the Gremlin SEE the bullets!!!"
Clearly, I was not drawn to guns.

Later I went with a friend to the shooting range and she taught me how to shoot. It wasn't as scary as I thought but I was still cautiously afraid of the power I held in my hands even as I unloaded a few clips into the pretend man target.
For the record, I'm not a bad shot.

Slowly but surely, I've come to a more moderate relationship with guns. I'm still quite the pacifist and I'd cry if I was forced to shoot Bambi or any of his friends, even for food. I continue to have no problems with hunters though I wish they were more careful with their targets as it seems every hunting season some bozo shoots his hunting partner or a person in the woods who wasn't wearing enough orange. I have come to appreciate that there is a gun in my house and if someone were to break in and threaten my family, I would not hesitate to aim at my target. (Yes, that target is all you would be robbers and violence makers) I have seriously considered getting my concealed carry permit and have talked with  my husband about what type of a gun would suit me best - he says 9mm, I'm thinking .380 ACP. There are definitely moments in the car and running on the trail where I have thought it would be nice to be armed with more than a cherry limeaid from Sonic.

I have NOT however wavered in my personal opinion that owning a gun is a PRIVILEGE. As such, one must be proven worthy of that privilege through an appropriate and thorough background check. This whole bullshit about it's my right and making me wait three days is a violation of my rights is ridiculous. I can't drive a car without proving my worthiness for a license, taking a written test and demonstrating my skill. It does not seem like an imposition to expect the same of owning a weapon. Perhaps if more people demonstrated the skills to own a gun, they wouldn't accidentally shoot their children and family members by removing the clip and not realizing there was a bullet in the chamber. I am always amazed by reading of accidents like this when the first lesson I was taught was to never pick up a weapon without clearing/checking the chamber first before my finger goes anywhere near the trigger.

I do NOT believe that people need semi-automatic rifles. Call them assault rifles, call them "modern sporting rifles," or call them people killers. I do not think anyone but law enforcement needs to own them. Obviously I am not a person who subscribes to the theory that I need to be ready to take up arms against my tyrannical country at any moment, so I'm cool with passing on the AR-15.

In the wake of the slaughter of innocent children, I'm not naive enough to think that stricter gun control will prevent crazy bastards from doing crazy things. I'm sure that criminals will continue to obtain guns illegally just as sure as I am that every person in the country carrying a gun will do nothing but get more bystanders shot. I have no data to prove anything, but in my heart I don't think that more guns is the answer. I certainly don't want to send my child to a school where every teacher is packing heat. Now if he goes to a military school, maybe I'd have a different opinion.

Mediating on this horrible tragedy I realize that I am now a 39 year old who knows how to handle a pistol and has no qualms about taking out any mother fucker who would dare threaten her beloved child. However, I still believe in many of the seemingly common sense gun control arguments brought forth by an idealistic 12 year old way back when.
And I think that's ok.