Check out the entire blog at:
http://iamtheinsideman.wordpress.com/
My father was an “early adopter” of peace. Returning home after serving in the Army during the Korean Conflict, Daddy decided he would have no guns in his home nor would he raise his three sons with toy weapons of any kind.
The Christmas that I was 7, my younger brother was 5 and my older brother was 8, someone gave us these big plastic trucks with working missile launchers mounted where the cargo container would normally sit. Once they were fully operational and my father saw that the toilet-paper-roll sized “missiles” could put out an eye or damage some of my mother’s beloved figurines, the missiles were confiscated. Once we got tired of playing with trucks or pushing my younger brother around on them (yes, they were that big) they were relegated to the back of a closet and eventually wound up in the trash. Besides, in the limited space of a two-bedroom apartment, and living in a neighborhood where it was a 10 minute drive to the nearest park, Matchbox cars, Hot Wheels, LEGOs, and Lincoln Logs were more fun and much more compatible with group play and our active imaginations. We could create an endless variety of buildings, streets and superhighways, then race or parade our fleets of vehicles through them for hours.
On this particular Fall morning, November 1, 2014, in my adopted home of a Los Angeles shimmering in the morning sun after our first rain of the season, I am struck by how much weapons, particularly guns and wars involving guns and other ballistic weapons are luxuries that I do not have or ever want to afford.
My ideal model of gun ownership, usage and maintenance is really much too expensive and, more important to me, time consuming. I would want to have the most efficient and effective weapon for multiple uses. Full disclosure: I came to Southern California in 1981 as part of many teams working to engineer and manufacture weapons of mass destruction. I would want to hit targets with maximum impact, minimal noise and little or no collateral damage. Practice requiring membership in a local gun club would be important to maintain the best skill level. An additional investment of time and materials would be required to maintain my weapons in top working condition. If there were children or other adults in my home, I would want state-of-the-art gun locks and secure storage.
Most significantly, in the Fall of 2014 as an African-American male in the United States of America, I simply would not want to exponentially increase my chances of disfigurement and/or death at the hands of law enforcement with active imaginations and trigger fingers because of what they merely thought I might do with any weapon or something that looked like a weapon in my personal possession.