Why am I Pro-Gun?

There is a video that showed up in my suggested videos when I was checking my channel over this evening, and watched it. Personally, I found it to be a very interesting video. Main break down: 3 people were pro-gun, and 3 people were anti-gun. They separated them, asked a question, and if it applied to you, you came forward and spoke about it. They spoke together, it was all very civil, no name calling or accusations. And the selection of people was very varied. This got me to thinking.

Why am I pro-gun? This is a question I get asked all the time. It was asked of me a lot while I stood behind the sales counter in a gun store, especially being a woman standing behind the gun counter. So, I want to answer that question now with a little more detail than I could give face to face. 

Believe it or not, I was not always pro-gun. I won't say I was ever anti-gun, but I was raised differently. I grew up in Jersey City, NJ. My gun safety lessons were non-existent. It was basically, "If you see someone with a gun, they are either a cop or a criminal." I grew up not knowing that civilians were legally allowed to own guns, because that statement was actually made to me by my educators, but also my family. It was a terrible lesson for many reasons. 

Because of that lesson, I took gun violence nonchalantly. When I was around ten years old, we went to my grandmother's house in Philadelphia. My parents had a school reunion to attend, so I was staying with my grandmother for the evening. My grandmother's neighborhood was terrible. There was a known gang house on the block and everything. It was a poverty stricken area and had been since my mom was a kid, but in years leading up to this, it had also become violent. I was never afraid there because I was used to gang activity, but I also knew these people. They did, believe it or not, help take care of my grandmother because she was the only really elderly person on the street. She had gang members that would grocery shop for her and take her to church every morning. 

That particular night, I was watching TV with her when we heard pops. I slid off the sofa and onto the ground, never taking my eyes off the TV screen, and sat there until I heard the sirens. My grandmother, not being able to get on the floor, remained on the sofa. We later found out that there was a woman across the street who's husband shot her dead. She was an exotic dancer, and her husband thought she was offering other services. He was also known to be very physically abusive, and it ended that night. 

I think back on that now, and it saddens me. Those shots didn't bother me. I was sad when I heard the woman died, but I didn't equate that with the gun. But the shots never bothered me. 

That was not my first run in with a gun wielding nut. We saw people laying in the street. I remember coming home one night from a friend's house shortly after I got my driver license and driving past a man laying in the cross walk in an absolute heap, a woman standing over him screaming at the top of her lungs. The park where my soccer games and practices were held was regularly roped off or closed down for body retrieval.

I was five the first time my life was threatened with a gun. I'm not going to get into the story because it was a family member who is still alive, but he was a cop. My mother made a comment about it once and said she was amazed I was not afraid of guns after that. I was, however, completely terrified of police officers until I was almost ten years old. And when I say I was terrified, I mean I ran screaming any time I saw a cop. My mom commented, "Even at that age you knew to blame the person, not the object." 

All of that aside, I was fairly neutral on guns until I moved to North Carolina. I took a job as an armored car guard, and the job required me to carry a revolver. At this point, I had never touched a gun in my entire life. The company put us all in a class and we were taught by a retired Army drill instructor how to care for and shoot a gun. The gun was a flaming dumpster fire. It was a refurbed Ruger GP100, and I think the refurb was done by a blind man with no hands. When it finally stopped working because the firing pin fell out one day, the company refused to get me a new one, but I was still required to qualify with it... somehow. I ended up going out and purchasing my first gun. It was a Sig Sauer P226 in 40SW. Only gun I've ever sold! 

Anyway. I worked that job for three years. I was actually, at one point, thinking about writing a book about that job, but I never did. I had plenty of run ins with people who were just ignorant and more than a few with real malicious intent. But three events while I worked there are what I credit with my swing toward being pro-gun instead of neutral. 

​The first was a robbery. We had a messenger who was just the sweetest man on the face of the planet. He was a real young African American man, just at 21 when he started working there. He's one of those people you didn't want to see at 4:00 in the morning, because he was also smiling huge and was super happy all the time. But he also was the type of person who wouldn't hurt a fly. Well. He was making a stop one day when a serial robber got him. This guy was actually a real issue. He'd gotten one of our actual uniforms and was suiting up and making pick ups at banks. This went on for a while, and when it became obvious that he was getting to a point of arrest, he ditched the uniform and got real brazen. He walked up to this sweet man and put him down fast, taking his bag and running off. The messenger wasn't too badly hurt, but it changed all of us. 

The second was a confrontation with a woman, and I do think this was the real turning point, with the other two events solidifying my stance. I had just finished swapping out an ATM in a big box store when she stormed over to me. She screamed in my face, "Why are you carrying that gun?! That money isn't worth killing someone over!" And the life changing words came out of my mouth as if they were always there. "I'm not carrying the gun to kill someone else. I'm carrying it to stop them from killing me." 

The final event occurred while I was working at the second company, but was not work related. I was actually coming home from work. It was 3:30 in the morning and I was on a main road which was not heavily traveled at that time of the morning. As I was driving, a car came up behind me. He wanted me to go faster, but I already had two speeding tickets in a six month period and wasn't going over the speed limit. I was in the right lane and there was a left lane he could have gone around me in. But that wasn't good enough. He did finally give in and went around me, but I got stuck behind him at a red light. Another car pulled up behind me, a woman was driving, and she was oblivious. She wasn't involved, but because she pulled too far up and was doing everything in her car once stopped besides looking out the window, she didn't see what was happening. 

The guy got out of his car and I thought to myself, "Great. Road rage." He stood up and I realized he was an overweight man standing about 6'5" or so. This was one big dude. As he began walking toward my car, the light hit something and I looked down. In his right hand was a knife. A very big knife. A little larger than a standard Ka-bar. Because of the nature of what I did at that job, I wasn't allowed to carry a cell phone or anything, so I had no phone to call for help. He gets to the side of my car and takes a good crack at my side window. It didn't break. He reared back to take another hit, this time with the handle of the knife, and I didn't even realize what I was doing. He stopped and stood there a moment, hand still raised, staring at me. He waited a good 30 seconds, dropped his hand, and walked slowly back to his car. He got in and ran the light. I finally took a minute to realize I was sitting in the seat, leaning back over my center arm rest, still facing the side window. And that Sig was firmly pointed at the window with my trigger finger up along the slide waiting to get the message to move to the trigger. 

I took off and went to the next open business I could find, which happened to be a hotel. I ran into the lobby and had them call 911. The cops arrived and asked questions, I told them what I could, including the fact that I had drawn my gun. They asked if the guy was shot and I said no. I gave them the magazine to prove all the rounds were still there. The one cop talking to me looked at my uniform and said, "He did all of this with you dressed like that? That man must need a wheelbarrow for his balls." My uniform was almost identical to the one the cops wore - the robin egg blue shirt and a big silver badge. I never even thought about that. That guy had no way of knowing I wasn't a cop, not in that lighting. And he still chose to proceed.

My reason for being pro-gun is myself. I'm not pro-gun because I believe in killing people. I don't carry with the hope of getting into an altercation. I don't want to hurt or kill anyone. But I don't want to die, either. And I believe I have a right to defend myself. And I don't think I should have to explain that. 

Do guns kill? Yes, of course they do. Cars kill, too. "But cars weren't designed to kill!" You are right! They weren't. But more people are killed by them every year than they are by guns. And let's face it, next time you get on the road, how many people do you meet on the road who use their cars like weapons to threaten you into moving faster or just flipping out and driving recklessly because there is a traffic jam or no one is moving fast enough? How many of you know a smaller statured person who drives a big SUV and will readily admit it makes them feel powerful? Your car is a tool, and that tool can be used to transport or it can be used to run down pedestrians. My gun is a tool. It can be used to murder someone or it can be used to stop them from murdering me.  

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