As I watch people like Wayne LaPierre and Alex Jones on television I only think one thing, - why are these people are speaking for me?
You guys know me. I own a gun or two. I don’t think it defines who I am despite those that keep asking me about them. I do take the time to learn and respect what they do and maintain safety at all times. As a combat veteran I have a number of different views on things than my friends that have never served, let alone fire a gun. I like to think that people used to ask me about these things because they find I am not a screaming one dimensional gun fanatic.
That’s good because I have wanted to write this ever since I saw Wayne LaPierre speak after the Sandy Hook massacre. This is what I WISH he had said.
I wish he had thought to better explain the horror he felt at the tragedy. I couldn’t sleep for two days thinking about the events in Newtown. I find it odd he didn’t look sad.
I wish he could have imparted a sense that tragedy like this makes everyone stop and think from their hearts, that there must have been something that gun owners as a group missed, and that he himself would be searching for an answer.
I wish that he didn’t talk about the gaming industry when he could have said “our messages about keeping guns away from the mentally ill starts with all gun owners in their own homes and the games are distant second at best.”
I wish he had said that there is no way for anyone other than the family to decide if the child and the weapons are adequately separated and secured. We can’t do it for them even if we pass a hundred laws. They have to have the proper tools for assessment.
I wish he could have beseeched the gun owners of America to give a close look at their own families and honestly asses if there is someone in the house, that they love dearly, that have questionable mental faculties, and therefore reconsider how those weapons are stored – even if it means getting rid of them. The signs are there. You have to look and know what to look for.
I wish for fuck’s sake he had said “mentally ill” or “psychotic” instead of the “EVIL”. Even if those two terms are incorrect, they are more correct than “evil.”
As it stands, at the time he spoke the entire country was waiting with bated breath. At that time he chose to propose a solution in such a way that implied the only solutions were to start doling out handguns to schoolteachers and adding armed volunteers to patrol hallways. I for one would like to think he meant more than this, but as much as I would like to believe he just spoke poorly, there is a part of me that thinks these are his only options.
That’s crazy. I believe armed guards and free concealed carry permits to all are not going to solve the issue for the very simple fact that not everyone wants to carry a gun, even if they are welcome to it.
I wish he had said that it should remain up to each individual school to decide how to handle their security situation.
I wish he had said that abolishing “gun-free zones” doesn’t mean arm everyone to the teeth.
I wish he had said that it is very possible that a veteran could get a degree in education. That that person could be the kind of person a school might consider allowing to bring a pistol into a school and that a lock box in a desk might be preferable to a sidearm in a holster.
I wish he could have said that removing gun-free zones does not mean letting any yahoo carry into a school, it just means stop advertising the fact that there are none.
There is so much to be said now, in this time where between state and federal bills up for voting, I could be stripped of the firearms permit that I first acquired in New York City for $395 before joining the NYPD Auxiliary, where I stood in front of the Mosques on Steinway Street on 9/11/2001 to protect them from retaliation. The one I then re-applied for in New Jersey as a veteran of the Iraq war and received after the New Jersey police contacted two friends to vouch for me, a thorough background check by both New Jersey State Police and the federal agencies and signed a clearance to give the police full access to my mental health records, should any exist. A process already repeated 3 times, once for each new handgun I bought.
All of that is now looking to expire at the stroke of a pen. I may not get it back until I pass a rigorous mental health screening if these laws pass in New Jersey.
After that, nearly every firearm I own will have illegal magazines. This bothers me. In my own home I reserve the right to always have the upper hand. I do not want to be facing a guy or two with fifteen round magazines to my seven or even ten or five. I don’t own an assault rifle but that’s just because I don’t care to clean them anymore. However I have more experience and training with them than any of the handguns I own. It looks like I won’t ever be allowed to own one despite twenty years of familiarity.
And here is my final point that really wish could have been well driven home: The amount of bullets in my gun, in my house, has nothing to do with those running about shooting rooms full of people. I am compelled by who I am to follow the letter of the law, but the law will be tying my own hands in my own house. I do not find that acceptable. I don’t understand why anyone else does either. You all know me, I am not a gun “nut”, but why is this tidal wave of new laws aiming to weaken me in my own house and by extension, your own house, acceptable? There may well be some gun laws that will make the country a safer place, but I have to be honest, all of the ones I have seen come up lately aren’t going to make a bit of difference.
I don’t think Mr LaPierre speaks for me. But I really wish those that care enough about this issue could speak _to_ me. My voice on this issue is lost.