The mindset behind editorials like this. The author is concerned about her and her husband’s safety. She asks if they should buy and gun, and eventually comes to the conclusion that they shouldn’t, out of fear for the safety of their granddaughters.
She then relates her personal story of how she was almost shot with an “unloaded” gun. Unfortunately, it seems that she took the entirely wrong lesson away from that long past incident. Instead of taking to heart the tremendously important value in teaching your children the dangers of firearms and safe firearms handling, she came to the usual “guns am bad” conclusion.
The op-ed concludes with the following mind boggling quote.
In our house, we’ll remain unarmed.
Defenseless is better than discovering someone we love dead.
Seriously? The concept of being defenseless actually leaves me with a sick feeling in my stomach. I have a home alarm. I use it, as well. But I certainly don’t bet my life, or the life of my family on the hope that Brinks will get the law to my house in time.
People. If you have guns in your house, and children, you need to teach your children to not play with them. And especially, to not ever point them at another person. Ever. To counter the personal story from the op-ed, allow me to share my personal experience.
My father had guns in the house. I knew where the guns were, and where the ammo was. Sometimes, if I was home alone, I’d go and look at them. The thought of picking one up and pulling the trigger? Never even crossed my mind. Sure, I thought they were cool; but I also knew that you didn’t go around playing with guns. By the time I was eight I knew to treat all guns like they were loaded.
One of things I’ve been meaning to do is write the partner series to the Self-Defense articles (Part 1 and Part 2) – the partner articles being about home defense. I’ll start on those tomorrow, part one will focus on non-firearms related options for securing the safety of your home.
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