The first time someone pointed a gun at me, I was 12-Years old. I had just jumped off my bike and said hello to my friend when she said “I have something to show you, but promise me you won’t scream.”
“Is it a dead animal?” I asked suspiciously, remembering the dead cat she had tried to rescue recently.
“It’s not,” she said.
As we approached the garage, she asked “Are you sure you won’t scream?”
“Are you sure it’s not a dead animal?” I replied.
“I’m sure,” she said.
“Okay,” I said as we walked to the fridge.
Yes, there was a long dead fridge in the garage, among other things. That’s why her yard was such a great place for clubhouse supplies. You could find anything there. She opened the fridge door, and piled high were weapons. Fisticuffs, knives, chains…and several guns. I didn’t scream. I just stared. “Don’t think these are mine,” she said.
I didn’t think they were. Katy didn’t have a criminal bone in her body. “Where did they come from?” I asked.
“I think they’re my dad’s.”
“But why would he have them here?” I asked. Katy’s parents were divorced. They hadn’t lived together in years.
“He might have hidden them here,” she said, “if he’s not supposed to have them. I’m going to tell mom when she gets home from work. I hid them here for now so Molly won’t find them”. Molly is Katy’s sister.
“Just close the door,” I said.
I should have gone home then and there, but I was young and inexperienced. No one had ever talked to me about guns or gun safety. In my mind, Katy would tell her mom later, and everything would be fine. So, we went to the side of her house for bricks and roof tarp, because we were building the roof of the clubhouse and didn’t want the rain to wreck it. The next thing we knew, Molly’s voice was shouting “Freeze, you’re under arrest!” She was pointing a gun at us, fully loaded, safety off.
The color drained from Katy’s face, but I was calm. I didn’t know the gun was loaded, though I wasn’t stupid enough to play with one. Molly tried to persuade us to play cops and robbers, but we refused. She shrugged her shoulders and walked away. That’s when Katy told me it was loaded. I felt the color drain from my face, and I knew we had to leave. Katy and I immediately got on our bikes and rode to my house. My mother called Katy’s mom, who then rushed home and confiscated the gun. I didn’t even try to argue when mom forbade me to go to Katy’s until her mother confirmed the guns were gone. I knew she was right, and more importantly, I didn’t want to get shot. My parents gave me the Gun Safety Lecture too.
My father, perhaps, should have attended a few gun safety lectures himself. After moving to a state with lax gun control, he began buying guns and stockpiling ammo. During my last year of college, he started complaining that I was waking him up at night. It’s true that I occasionally got up to use the bathroom or get a glass of water, but I wasn’t making a ton of noise. I tried not to, because I didn’t want to listen to him whine about it later. We later found out his blood pressure medicine was the real culprit when it came to his insomnia.
One night, I tip toed to the kitchen to get a glass of water. My father, unbeknownst to me, was creeping up the hallway with his gun. Suddenly, he hissed “what the hell is wrong with you?” I glanced down and saw his gun pointed at me. “I could have shot you! I thought you were an intruder!”
Seriously? The kitchen had a night light, and he was right behind me. How could he possibly have mistaken me for an intruder? “No more getting up in the middle of the night!” He ordered, “go back to bed!”
After that, if I was thirsty at night, I waited, no matter how dry my throat was. More than once, I came close to wetting myself, because I had to wait for dad to wake up before leaving my room. I was about 21 or 22 at the time.
At this point, dad was getting heavily into the Men’s Right movement. He had been hell to live with before that, but he became much worse with the MRA crap. Just before I moved out, he started cleaning his guns on a regular basis, going out of his way to point them at any woman living under his roof. “I’m not pointing it at you,” he’d insist with a smirk while pointing the gun, “ You walked in front of it. What, are you libtards and feminazis? You have a problem with guns? I have second amendment rights!”
Yes, I have a problem with guns when they’re pointing at me or anyone else for no good reason. I have a problem with people having guns if they are mentally ill, child abusers, or have a history of violence. And the second amendment allows guns for self defense; it doesn’t excuse bad and irresponsible begavior. Looking back, this could have been prevented. Someone reported my parents to CPS while I was in school. They didn’t really investigate. They took their sweet time showing up after my father hit me in the face 3 times. The third blow snapped my head back and knocked me to a ground. I told the social worker what happened, but they didn’t see any marks. They would have found swelling had they bothered to show up sooner, but they didn’t. My father waved the unfounded paper in front of my face the day he got it; he saw it as government permission to do as he pleased. There was a scandal on the news several years later about CPS not investigating cases or properly investigating them. Many were closed just like mine were, and some of the kids were later murdered by their abusers. Thousands of cases were in backlog.
If they had shown up in time, maybe I would have been removed from the home. Or maybe his guns would have been confiscated (or maybe not; we lived in a red state at the time). Either way, I certainly wouldn’t have found myself looking down the barrel of his gun if they had done their jobs. There was a big scandal a few years ago with CPS. They ignored thousands of cases, and several children died. I’m alive, and I’m grateful for that.
Am I in favor of taking everyone’s guns? No. People should be allowed to have guns for self defense and hunting. But, they should have to pass a criminal background check, be evaluated to rule out serious mental illness, and be required to take gun safety classes. The guns should be registered every time, no exceptions, and they should be confiscated if the carrier does something like repeatedly point them at his kids.
I’m safe now. I am not on speaking terms with my family anymore. It was the only way I could guarantee my own safety.
The White Veiled Daughter 