Gun marketers and gun buyers put forth a lot of reasons for having an arsenal, most based in fear. Some people even argue for carrying a gun everywhere, the way someone with a serious bee-sting allergy would carry an epi-pen, because You Never Know. Sorry, folks, I’m not buying it – your argument, or your gun.
Here are my top 10 reasons for not having guns. The first half are things gun owners seem to be worried about, but I’m not. The other half are things that worry me, but don’t seem to bother gun owners one iota.
1. “You might need it to hunt food!”
My old dog died in my arms not long ago. I watched the light fade from her eyes. I’d rather be a vegetarian the rest of my life than watch a deer or a duck die from a bullet I put in her. And the things I am willing to kill (mice, rats) are not on my menu.
2. “Snakes!”
My ex-inlaws lived in a rattler-infested area in the mountains. I killed one with my car when it decided to sun itself in my parking spot; my mother-in-law killed one on the steps with a shovel (and skinned it and posted the skin as a warning to its fellows.) My ex even killed one with a rock when it wouldn’t let us pass on a narrow trail. No gun needed.
3. “OK, you can do snakes, but what about bears?”
True story: Two 18-year-old girls, defending our two 16-year-old sisters during a bear fight at night, placed them between a campfire and a little cliff, and banged away on Sierra Club cups with spoons. (Our food, the object of fight, was way up in a tree.) The bears gave up and went up the trail and tore up the tent of two guys who thought they’d sleep with their food to defend it. Gee, if only they had been armed. Or just smarter. Maybe grizzly bears, but the last grizzly in CA was killed in 1922.
4. “Scary people, like drug dealers!”
I have done intake at the local winter-season homeless shelter one or two days a week for 6 years. One responsibility is to send the occasional drug dealer away (they like to come by the front yard to troll for customers.) I just ask them nicely, in my best Older Quaker Lady voice. If they persist, I point out that if the cops have to be called, they might shut down the shelter as a nuisance, and their erstwhile customers will not be happy campers. We all agree this would be a bad outcome. They leave. I always assume they could be armed, and I’ve never been worried.
5. “Really scary people, in bad neighborhoods!”
As a matter of fact, the really scary-looking people in bad neighborhoods have always been kind and helpful to me. They helped push my car out of the intersection when it ran out of gas at 1 am in a bad part of town. They kept me company trudging through the snow to the El in Chicago after working late at the medical center. They asked me if I was lost when I was doing an aging study on Chicago’s south side, and helped me find the right address.
The other half: what worries me.
6. Children.
My 9-year-old grandson does not have toy guns at home. So he builds star-wars weaponry out of Legos. His four-year-old sister is interested in everything her brother does. A gun in the house, even locked up, is far too grave a risk.
7.Suicide.
I have an older relative whose wife is dying, after more than 60 years of marriage. He is clinically depressed. He taught gunnery in WWII. This demographic is at particularly high risk of suicide. Not on my watch, though, not with a gun in my house.
8. Accidents.
People shoot themselves in the hand, the leg. They shoot their family and their friends. Their dogs shoot them. Even supposedly trained experts in firearms have accidents. I’ve had accidents with pocket knives, scissors, and sharp pieces of paper. I don’t think I’m a good candidate for a gun.
9. My heroes.
My heroes apparently are quite different from those of gun owners: John Woolman, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. They deliberately chose non-violence as a path to fight injustice. What kind of admiration would I be showing if I chose to keep a gun?
10. Finally, my faith as a Friend/Quaker.
I still wrestle with the many ways in which I fall short of the ideals and leadership of my 360-year-old faith community in social justice, from women’s rights to prison reform to mental health care to anti-slavery to anti-war. This history is grounded in “seeing that of God in everyone” and acting accordingly. How on earth could I claim to be a Friend, or for that matter a follower of Jesus, if I kept a gun? I’d have to be willing to use it, which would utterly violate core teachings of my faith. Or I’d have to deceive people into thinking I would use it, which violates the Friends’ testimony of truthfulness.
To place gun ownership above the core teachings of faith comes dangerously close, in my mind, to idolatry. I may fall short, but at least I can be faithful in this one very simple and obvious choice. There will not be a gun in my home.