February 22, 2013  GUN CONTROL?

Something about this month or this season comes out of the clouds.  Maybe the legislature on Capitol Hill.  Been thinking of a letter to write on gun control which they could think over as they push on those bills.  Difficult for me emotionally and professionally.  Sometimes I think our USA has been conquered by terrorism.  Imagine wanting to own a gun army caliber and force in part because you are afraid our government will require insurrection.  Do these people vote I wonder!  The constitution gave that right as well.  And registration and background checks?  God forbid that they should be a senior asked to take a day each year to relicense as a driver, to prove you have been a native law abiding citizen in this country since the day that you were born.  Also please get your annual medical statement from your doctor to assure your physical/mental capacity to remain a safe driver.  And get that car, that means of destruction on our 80 mph freeways, inspected each year to assure its drive-ability.

My sadness:  A background as a teacher, a mental health therapist, and a governmental employee convinces me that there are reasonable and necessary reasons for guns.  But there are excesses and dangers because of purposes of intended use, whether their use and care and safety precautions are kept, whether mental and physical health of the owners doesn't need to be reviewed periodically.  From my professional perspective I would want to ask the person buying the assault rifle or heavy magazines of bullets why these purchases interest him.  Am I violating his privacy or is he violating mine.  I am pleased that my neighbor is a retired police officer who knows how to use guns.  I don't own one and I have not had one in the house since my only son was killed in a hunting accident at age 22, the fall before he would have graduated from Weber State College.  He was the only grandson of George Francis LaTullipe who served on the Salt Lake City Police Force.  A career officer who saved his own life and that of a fellow officer when he shot and killed a most wanted felon from Canada being taken in for questioning on a minor offense.  So Mark was raised as a toddler that knew his grandfather had guns, wore hostlers, he knew dangers and he was a boy who excelled in many activities including hunting and survival training.  But accidents happen and forgetting to safety the pistol before it is handed to another and is dropped resulted in his immediate fatality.  I was relieved he died quickly from a severed aorta and bled out in minutes.

When my son was 4 and his sister 2, I removed them from a neigbors yard in Roy, Utah.  I had been able to observe them from my own home but we needed to drive to Salt Lake City that morning.  My neighbor was sad to see them leave her kids and requested another little girl to come to play.  Less than a half an hour later we heard there was a shooting in Roy, Utah in which a 7 year old boy carrying his father's pistol out the front door discharged the gun and the bullet ricocheted through the car port killing the new playmate who had just celebrated her 5th birthday a week or so before.  Tragedy follows guns.

As does money and politics.  Our country militarized quickly for WWII.   From peaceful manufacturing to support heavy military support.  The world has changed, as have we, as have companies.  NRA has changed.  Corporate lobbying includes the gun and ammunition industries.  And a sinking economy torn between building a peaceful loving nation and continuing in world leadership and growth presents monumental needs for cautious, thoughtful government.  I have great respect for those women and men who serve and are assuming these tasks.  Yet.....I would not visit a legislator on the floor of the Utah senate or house if I knew he or she was packing.  I always felt armed guards at the Capitol Building were competent and trustworthy in the past.  I would not have become a teacher or have carried a gun into a school room.  I loved my students.  And as a therapist I became aware of patients who used guns, colllected guns and I knew of patients who had shot at therapists.  But As The World Changes is no longer a daytime soap.  We have changed.  Perhaps we have met the enemy and it is us.

Sorry to burden with this lengthy spillout of thoughts and emotions.  I am sure you have your own thoughts as well.  But isn't that what blogs are for?