"Scary, bad."
That's all my Alzheimer's afflicted mother mumbled over and over again as she walked toward me with a loaded .357 Magnum revolver in her open hands.
I think my heart stopped. Tick tock tick tock AmIGoingToDie?
It takes so little to pull a trigger.
"Now you're a good girl so why don't you just put that on the floor and come give me a hug."
Ever sweet and innocent and wanting to be considerate, she slowly bent over and put the gun on the rug.
I hugged her tighter and longer than I've ever hugged someone in my life.
Then I took the revolver, unloaded it, put the ammunition in the kitchen drawer and the gun back in its "hiding" place.
I had pleaded with my step father to either not keep a loaded gun in the house while my mother was there and ill, or at least to use a lock box, but no. Too much risk. Robbers, killers, vandals, Visigoths and Genghis Kahn, all right around the corner.
My mother with a gun, though, nothing risky about that.
On any given day and for no reason whatsoever, she could have killed me or herself or, genuinely scared, the UPS delivery person. Bang bang just like Kill Bill.
Now we're not talking about some uneducated and legally ignorant step father. I mean, you would think Hotchkiss, Harvard and Columbia Law would have instilled a tiny bit of common sense along the way. (It must be hiding behind the arrogance.)
BANG bang BANG bang BANG.
Five-shot revolver.
So yes, I'm a little bit angry. Who would have been responsible? Not my mother. The gun? That sounds silly. I've realized guns don't kill people, people kill people.
Who is to blame?
All the terrorists that run the NRA, the gun shows, the gun factories, the ammunition factories.—lots of blood on lots of hands.
Mine, too.
I know my mother forgot the whole thing within a minute, probably while wondering about my long, tight embrace.
I know I will never forget. Or sleep soundly until there are no more handguns in the United States.
That's all my Alzheimer's afflicted mother mumbled over and over again as she walked toward me with a loaded .357 Magnum revolver in her open hands.
I think my heart stopped. Tick tock tick tock AmIGoingToDie?
It takes so little to pull a trigger.
"Now you're a good girl so why don't you just put that on the floor and come give me a hug."
Ever sweet and innocent and wanting to be considerate, she slowly bent over and put the gun on the rug.
I hugged her tighter and longer than I've ever hugged someone in my life.
Then I took the revolver, unloaded it, put the ammunition in the kitchen drawer and the gun back in its "hiding" place.
My mother with a gun, though, nothing risky about that.
On any given day and for no reason whatsoever, she could have killed me or herself or, genuinely scared, the UPS delivery person. Bang bang just like Kill Bill.
Now we're not talking about some uneducated and legally ignorant step father. I mean, you would think Hotchkiss, Harvard and Columbia Law would have instilled a tiny bit of common sense along the way. (It must be hiding behind the arrogance.)
BANG bang BANG bang BANG.
Five-shot revolver.
So yes, I'm a little bit angry. Who would have been responsible? Not my mother. The gun? That sounds silly. I've realized guns don't kill people, people kill people.
Who is to blame?
All the terrorists that run the NRA, the gun shows, the gun factories, the ammunition factories.—lots of blood on lots of hands.
Mine, too.
I know my mother forgot the whole thing within a minute, probably while wondering about my long, tight embrace.
I know I will never forget. Or sleep soundly until there are no more handguns in the United States.
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