General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: How many here have had gun violence affect their lives? [View all]ghostsinthemachine
(3,569 posts)that i have no clear recollection of one incident. when my father became unable to use physical violence against me, he resorted to pulling guns on me. lots of times. by the time of his death, it was almost a monthly occurrence. he would also threaten my mother (who slept with a knife under her bed for 50 years in fear of him), my children and my brother and his family. So bad it was, my brother moved to Montana to get away from him.
we, the family, would take guns away from him, but the next week he would have more. over and over again. he refused diagnosis, so there was nothing we could do (we tried by going to court twice). He would buy guns legally and illegally. you name it.
then i had an incident where two black youths tried to rob a dope deal in my house. my stepson's deal. i just happened to be home at the time. life changing all the way around. guy put a gun to my face and told me I was dead. that gun misfired and I lived. Two white dop dealers chased the guy and fired 28 shots. None were arrested, except the black youth. I was made a racist on the witness stand by the attorney and the guy got off. He then sued me for two million dollars.
yeah life changing. The black youths had illegal guns, the white guys legal guns.
That happened years ago and I still have horrible horrible dreams about it.
one thing i know for sure in all of this is: had I hd a gun, it would have ONLY MADE THINGS WORSE. I would ahve killed my father surely, and I would not have any chance at all to do anything in the shootout unless that gun was strapped to my side, cocked and loaded. And then had I killed someone I could never have lived with that.