Gun Ownership

Today (Friday, December 14, 2012), a crazy and unforgivable thing happened in Connecticut. I'm sure you know what I'm referring to. A single person killed 28 other people, including 20 elementary school kids. Excuse me for getting a little topical, here. I know this isn't usually my style. Today, though, I just can't help it because there are a couple of really important things I just feel I should say.

First and foremost, this is a horrible tragedy. I can't fathom what all of the people in that town are dealing with right now. The 2011 census says the population of Newtown, Connecticut was 1,960. That's really pretty comparable to some of the smaller towns I grew up in. I've noticed a lot of my friends expressing condolences for the families and the victims. It is incredible and heartwarming to see people who have never even been to Connecticut feeling sympathetic, but remember that in small towns, something like this effects literally everyone.

Newtown being such a small place also puts an awkward new perspective on the school shooting (and, more generally, the mass shooting) problem. I'm not noticing any new articles mentioning that. Columbine High School is in Littleton, Colorado, where I lived in my apartment before we moved into our house. The funeral home I worked at served several of those families, in fact. Some news articles refer to Littleton as a "small community", but having lived there for a cumulative year and a half, I can tell you Littleton is a suburb of the Denver metro area and should hardly be considered separate from it or "small". The Virginia Tech massacre took place in Blacksburg, Virginia, which has a population of 42,600.

This is not the first time in my life that I have suggested that people from small towns feel immune to the craziness of the outside world. But, honestly, even I thought this kind of thing was almost an impossibility for a town where everyone probably knows everyone. The news is particularly shattering as a result.

Then there's the obvious fact that this was an elementary school. At the point that I am writing this, Adam Lanza (20) is believed to be the gunman. He shot and killed his mother, who worked at the school, as well as 20 young children and himself. I have to wonder what motivated him. As a mother, I can't imagine any of my children growing up with a desire to murder me. Was there something dramatically wrong with Adam? And to be so indifferent to human life that he would take that of so many children...

I'm not sure there is anything more to be said.

But on another note, I will not be so naive as to jump on the gun control bandwagon as a result of such tragedies. We are a gun-owning household. I am not personally a gun owner. I have formed my own opinions about gun ownership in the time that I have known my partner.

Laws don't stop criminals, that's why they're criminals. Gun laws won't stop criminals from ending up with guns, illegally or not. They'll just make it harder for law abiding citizens to acquire them through legal means. I don't own (and thus don't carry) firearms because I don't want the hassle of registering... and I don't know where I'd put a holster. Honestly, I already have to deal with the DMV. That's enough for me. But, believe me, if I had one on me when some crazy person walked into the food court at the mall and pointed his gun at you, I'd protect you with mine. I know my partner would, too.

The retort I often hear to that argument is something like a heavy, sarcastic, "because nothing saves more lives than random stray gunfire by trigger-happy hero-types who have no idea what to do in a panicked shoot out!" I tend not to respond to this sort of cynicism because I don't really enjoy all of us pro-gun-ownership people being lumped into the "trigger-happy hero-types" category. I get my feathers a little ruffled and prefer saying nothing over starting an asinine argument about stereotyping. Let me just say, did you know that when representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot in Tuscon, Arizona, the gunman was tackled by a retired army colonel and further subdued by a concealed carry permit holder who had a firearm on his person and chose not to use it because of the crowd?

We're not all about stray bullets and casualties. Real life isn't a video game. We're not all perfect and not a single one of us is a super hero, but every gun owner I personally know I would vouch for as a judicious person with whom I would trust my life. Again, I'm not a gun owner, but I do like having one around.