Monday, August 19, 2013

Think a Gun in the House is a Good Idea?

When I was 19 or 20, my father, a minister, got a call from a parishioner saying that her daughter (about a year or two younger than I) had shot herself in the stomach with her stepfather's gun. I drove my father to the hospital and waited with the mother while the daughter was in surgery. The mother and daughter had been having an argument over the girl's boyfriend. The girl locked herself in the bathroom and shot herself in the stomach. The surgeon came out and talked with us. The case was hopeless. She was too torn up inside. We visited the girl in recovery. She was conscious and talking. What she was concerned about was that she would never be able to dance again. Clearly, she didn't want to die. She did die a couple of days later. It was done on impulse. If she hadn't had access to a gun, she might be alive today, and a grandmother, like me. This event made an impression on me. When my kids were growing up, I told them to come home if they were visiting friends and found out they had a gun in the house. It happened once. Having a gun in the house isn't worth the risk.

2 comments: