article from a mother whose child needs help "i am adam lanza's mother'
I live in America and come from a family that was in the military and hunted and always had a gun in the house. My father used it to intimidate us sometimes when he'd been drinking. I was taught very young how to shoot, it was a tradition when we camped. Granted, it taught me the power of a gun and how to use one...but I hate them.
Now I keep hearing people say if civilians are packing, these things wouldn't happen...but responsible civilians don't carry around firearms on a daily basis for no reason. Are we suggesting that is what we should do now?
Everyone carry and it will stop people from trying to get away with things like this latest massacre? We are not in control enough of our emotions in general for that to be a safe bet. I think we'd have a bunch of trigger nervous self imposed vigilantes and it could go very very badly, rather than everyone feeling more secure.
I think everyone would be paranoid about who was carrying and who was stable and the energy would build to a really explosive point and that we'd feel safer knowing that it's damn near impossible to get a gun, and to keep one you have to go through insanely detailed examinations to be sure you were mentally acceptable and morally responsible to carry one. An investigation into your whole life. If you've got nothing nasty, vindictive, dangerous, or unstable to hide...then sure....you can have a gun. A reasonable one....relative to the use you need it for, not armed for your own personal arsenal. ok. getting off the soapbox now. Just so affected by this, when I was about 10, (I'm 41 now) my first boyfriend's brother accidentally shot himself in the head with his father's gun. He was a police officer and had gotten the new gun as a Christmas present. The babysitter was late....(my brother and sister and I were out of town at our Grandma's house) and the boys got out the gun to play cops and robbers with. Apparently Jeff..the 8 yr old...was pretending the cops were going to get him and turned the gun on himself not knowing it was loaded and able to shoot. His older brother ran to my parents house and got my them, who ran up there and saw the awful results and tried to give him CPR, but it was too late. They moved just after that.
I remember small things like going to the house after they'd left and standing on a rock to look in the window and try to remember Jeff and see if I could see anything relative to his death...morbid maybe, but I was a child. We'd hung out with these kids daily..all day. I remember my parents showing up to my Grandma's house in the middle of the night upset, and the next morning my brother said something about being glad Jeff hadn't joined us in something the week before..and my father replied that Jeff wouldn't be joining us at all anymore, and then told us what happened. I remember the buzzing in my ears as he told us, and the confusion and the feeling of quiet and emptiness on what used to be a vibrant street full of kids playing. I know it took me years for me to act 'normal' about the kids wanting to be like their friends and pretend to shoot the bad guys...as long as they never pretend shot at themselves or anyone real...I could live with it. And then came the video games that were like blasting people into small bits of gore, and all the kids want to do it and pretend to be these great warriors with massive amounts of weapons to wipe out as many people as they can. I'm still not ok with it. When my son's PS3 died last year, secretly I rejoiced (sorry honey) because it was obvious that his agression went up when he played but he didn't see anything wrong with it. I'm not a prude by any means...and I know life is hard. Very, very well. But something in me says...enough with the crazy access to guns for anyone...enough with people with no morals making it easy to get guns on the internet...enough with us not really caring if games to kill are mass marketed for profit regardless of the loss to our spirits and humanity. ok now I'm really getting off the soapbox. I don't know if you bothered to read all of this but if you did....I love you for it. xxxxx
be well wanderers and gypsies
and tiny little people who are now afraid if someone will storm their school
and all the teachers that have to endure 'lockdown training'
and all the sweet sweet babies that left this plane that day
and all the brave heroic teachers that tried to save them
the ones that gave their lives...and the ones that saved lives and made it through to the other side to now have to face the horror and put on brave faces of support for the kids that were there and this devasated community
my deepest, most genuine, most heartfelt love to you all
raven
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