No One Can Hear Me Scream: Part 2, Guns and Drive-bys

Apr 27, 2012 by Lauren

Recently, I heard some suburban moms debating whether or not it was ok to have guns in the home when you have kids.  I had to laugh.

 

Just a few years ago, that could’ve been me.  Right there on their (inevitably anti-gun) side, self-righteously shocked and awed that anyone would even CONSIDER having guns and children under the same roof.  I’d be quoting statistics proclaiming the obvious: accidental gun deaths are xyz % more common in households which have guns, ignoring the obvious that you can’t have an accidental shooting in a house UNLESS there is a gun.  Duh.

 

Personally, I may have grown up in the burbs, but there was a gun in my house.  A hunting rifle.  I knew where it was and I had access to it.  I don’t think we ever had any bullets, shells, whatever, nor would I have known how to load it or shoot it…but I did have access to it.  And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

 

It made me very sad to hear these suburban moms ADAMANTLY claiming their children would NEVER be allowed to play in the homes of children whose parents kept guns in the house.  It also made me laugh.  If I followed that logic, poor G$ would not only never have friends, he wouldn’t be allowed to live in his own house.  Until he was born, we had a shotgun propped against the wall in our living room.  I never knew if it was loaded or not, but if someone broke into my house, I bet they’d find out.

 

As I’m writing this, I actually don’t even know how many guns (is it a Freudian slip that I keep typing “funs?”) are in our house.  We have a safe, we keep them locked up.  But let’s get real.  It’s the country.  Brad Paisley doesn’t sing “My eyebrows ain’t plucked/there’s a gun in my truck” just because it rhymes.

 

While I have full confidence that I could walk into most of my friends’ homes or vehicles at any time, because most people’s doors aren’t locked, I can also tell you, it wouldn’t be a good decision (unless they saw my snobby foreign SUV pulling up and were already waving ;)).  The doors might not be locked but the guns are locked and loaded.

 

Former suburb-dweller me would never have imagined my children going hunting.  Ridge-dweller me isn’t too fond of the idea either…but I’m willing to consider it.  Adam recently mentioned his parents gave him and his 2 brothers their own BB guns one year.  Suburb-me and Ridge-me agree that although the idea of 3 boys out of the house and out of your hair might indeed be appealing, that probably won’t be happening at Chateau de Goofy.  Adam says he will prove me wrong.  How else will G$ and his future sibling(s) learn to shoot birds?  Yes, how indeed.  I’ve stayed up many nights pondering that very question…oh wait.  Not at all.

 

Not everything with guns is good though.  Sometimes I think all this gun talk has made me more anxious than I used to be.  I grew up in a subdivision.  People were always around, close by, driving by, walking down the sidewalks at night.  I never gave it a second thought.  Now I have no neighbors, no sidewalks, 10% of the people driving by that I used to…and I’m spying on every one of them.  If you drive by too fast, I yell at you.  If you drive by too slow, I memorize your face and plate number.  If I am tanning on the driveway and you drive by too slow, then TURN AROUND AND COME BACK…you’re a creep. Yes, that actually happened.

 

I don’t really know why I’m so suspicious.  Maybe it’s because I’m just nosy in general.

 

Maybe it’s because there literally is no one around to hear me scream.

 

The moral of this story is that I hope G$’s friends’ parents DO have guns in the house.  I want them to stay safe and I want my baby to stay safe.  The accidental shooting I want to hear about is some dumbass “accidentally” getting a .22 right between the eyes when they break in during the middle of the night.  Sometimes city-dwellers are just plain wrong.