Rational rationale

I have thought about guns a great deal since my father committed suicide by handgun when I was in ninth grade.

I say that not to elicit sympathy, but as a starting point for this essay. A little background: my parents were divorced when I was an infant; I had little contact with my father before he died; and my mother provided such a rich community of elders that his absence seemed incidental. Nonetheless, his death has affected me in ways I am still discovering.

All of this is by way of explaining the very personal relationship I have with gun control efforts, especially those around handguns. Not long before my father died, the "Brady Bill" brought national attention to gun control efforts. I supported the movement then; my conviction was deepened by my father's death and has been cemented over time.

That said, as distasteful as I find them, I am not against gun ownership. My husband has rifles and uses them. My son has practiced marksmanship with his Scout pack. A number of my friends enjoy a day at the shooting range. I respect that. I have even surprised people in the past -- those who have heard (or read) me rant about gun control -- with my ardent support of hunters, albeit from the perspective that they play a vital role in wildlife management.

I am aware that the basic regulations for which I advocate would not have saved my father's life. He owned his weapons legally and had a permit. I know also that his suicide was really a symptom of a lifetime of alcohol abuse. If he was truly intent on ending his life, he would have found a way.

The thing is, with suicide by gun there is very little margin of error. There are plenty of statistics (yes, yes, I know -- lies, damn lies, and statistics) tallying gun deaths. What many people don't realize is that two-thirds of those are suicides. Having a gun vastly increases the odds of someone attempting and succeeding in trying to kill themselves. Especially, unfortunately, people under the age of 18. It is so easy. 

As for other deaths? Looser laws in any one state vastly increases the homocide rate there as well. Locations with regulations around gun storage (locked up and unloaded) see far fewer accidental fatalities. I'm not going to turn this into a numbers game -- there are plenty of much better researched and dedicated pages for that. What I am going to say, after nearly 30 years of thinking about it, is that I truly believe that most of these deaths -- suicide, homocide, accidental -- were preventable with simple, common sense measures. I don't intend to strip guns away from people. I do believe that we can ask them to be responsible -- much as I am required to prove a certain level of responsibility before owning or operating a vehicle. Growing up in my little valley, getting a hunting license and going on your first hunt was a rite of passage. I remember all the kids excitedly talking about signing up for the hunter safety courses their parents required before going into the woods. That step was part and parcel of growing up and being a "good" -- as in moral and ethical -- hunter. I don't know why that has changed.

I have heard at length (from my husband, among others) the argument that people rely too much on the government to keep them safe, and that it's a "nanny state". You know what? We as a nation have proven that necessary. After struggling to keep eight-year olds calm and quiet through lockdown drills, after mourning too many mass shootings, after seeing pictures of men and women carrying firearms through Target, I don't trust my fellow citizens to act in our collective best interest. The roughly 32,000 gun deaths last year are my measure of why I believe the following basics should be implemented:

• Require all gun owners to take a use and safety course. I'd encourage them to go further and go through some simulation training. This would be for everyone's safety. I have been in enough mildly emergency situations that I don't trust people to behave well under stress, let alone a situation where gunfire might be needed. I really, really, really don't want an untrained, panicking person trying to use a gun.
• Require background checks for ALL sales. Period.
• Restrict large capacity ammunition clips.
• Restrict multi-weapon sales, especially through unlicensed dealers. This is where many of the weapons used unlawfully come from.

I'm sure there are more, but I didn't start this post with the intent to list out my solutions. As I said, there are better and more passionate sites for that. All I wanted to do was tie the political back to the personal. So many folks cry out for RKBA (the Right to Keep and Bear Arms). I think, sometimes, they forget the people behind the calls for regulation.

I was not close to my father. I may never have been, even if he had lived. Nonetheless, his death affected me profoundly. Most immediately came the knowledge that I was "half an orphan". My mother's mortality was highlighted by my father's death, deepening a sense of the fragility of family which had been instilled three years prior with the death of my maternal grandmother.

The longer-lasting, more complicated impact came from my imagination. Here's what I think I know: as a result of his alcoholic behavior, his third wife left him. She found him when she returned to the house sometime during the week. 

From there my vivid imagination takes over, filling in the gaps. I can see him angrily drinking while watching the Broncos lose. I smell the oil as he breaks down the gun, wiping it clean, reassembling. Repeating, maybe, as he drinks more. Easing toward tears, frustration melting into an overwhelming sense of failure. Walking to his bedroom. Lying down on the pastel bedspread. The shot, and a fan of chunky blood on the wall. 

I have carried those images in my head for more than twenty years now. I have no idea if they are even vaguely accurate. I don't care to find out.

All I want, really, is that no one else have to live with their version of this sorrow.

Attend Me . . .

Note: I work in a public elementary school. One of my primary tasks is attendance; I review which students are at school, or not, I hand out tardy slips to those who come in late, and I try to track down those who don't come in at all.

Attend. We generally use it to mean "show up", but there's a deeper meaning: to be present, to care for, to take charge. Every day part of my job is to review the attendance at our elementary school. Over time I see patterns emerge -- illnesses that sweep through the school classroom by classroom, religious holidays that collect disparate children into faithful solidarity, weather affecting only those who don't have a car. On occasion I see evidence of truancy and must call in a social worker to address the issue. Attendance is a small task, but there are larger ramifications for both safety and education.

In our school some children hardly miss a day, and are never late. I barely recognize them. Others I know by first and last name because every morning they come to the office five, ten, fifteen minutes late. As a parent and volunteer in the classroom, I can attest to a parallel trend: the same children who are late every day often are the ones who don't turn in their homework. They struggle to read and keep up with their peers. They don't have a support network that values their education.

These patterns I see, these falling lines of disappointment and failure, are not tied to race or class. Some poor families fight nearly impossible odds to get their children to school on time. Networks of cousins and aunts and friends and neighbors fill in gaps and make sure that the students are there on time and ready to learn. At home they have space to read and someone to review their work. No matter how late, or how tired, someone is there to help. Every resource available through school or grants or third-party programs are employed to make sure their children will make it. And they do.

At the same time some wealthy families whose children dress impeccably and have all the right props are allowed to stay up late watching movies and lollygag their way to school. They sleep through class. Homework is seen as an unnecessary nuisance. Their extracurricular activities are given much attention; school gets short shrift. The families have no expectations of them; they have none for themselves. Their actions have no consequence, and they have no shame in seeing me first thing, day after day, if they come in at all.

A story: last week a parent called, an hour after school started, to let us know that her (eleven or twelve year old) child would be riding a bike to school, probably leaving home soon (mom wasn't there) and would take about 45 minutes. She asked that we make sure the child called upon arrival.

An hour and a half later, the child still hadn't shown up. The school's main secretary returned from a meeting, heard the situation, and informed me that up after the 45 minutes passed I should have considered it a case of a missing child. She immediately called the district's office of Safety and Security, asking them to send an officer to the student's house. I got on the phone and started calling people on the student's contact list. Mom didn't answer, so I left a message. On the third call I reached a grandparent who told me that the student had decided not to go to school and was at home with an older sibling. We eventually spoke with the actual student to confirm the story. Mom never did call us back.

So. I totally dropped the ball. I am extremely grateful that the child wasn't kidnapped or injured. But I question why in the world this is the school's responsibility? Sure, I can understand if a child was dropped off at school and we couldn't find him. But we had no control over when the student set out from home (or didn't in this case), nor could we know the route used to get to school. Heck, mom apparently anticipated that -- she allotted 45 minutes for a ride of less than a mile. In addition, if the parent was expecting a phone call, why wasn't SHE the one to raise the alarm after her deadline had passed? Finally, if she knew her child wasn't going to school after all, shouldn't she have let us know?

There is an entire industry of blame in our country predicated on holding teachers, administrators, and schools responsible for poorly educated students. As an eyewitness to the education process I have to ask, why are parents (and students) not also held accountable?

Traditionally, schools act in loco parentis -- in place of parents. Through the years the scope of those responsibilities have grown. Even before the bell rings staff provide food, shelter, discipline, and medical care to our students. I agree with most of those additions. However, as a parent I still consider my children to be in my custody until they get to the schoolhouse door, and I believe my responsibility for them and their actions never ceases, regardless of their location or company. I require my children to not just be present in school, but to attend. Their education is not just a right, but their personal responsibility. It seems to me that some parents are forgetting that.  Ultimately the school gets blamed for their poor performance, but really it's the parents who are failing their children.

My Rights

So there's the hostage situation just blocks from my kids' school and they're on lockdown. I'm glad they have such procedures in place, but really, what the FUCK is wrong with people? And don't you dare tell me that guns aren't the issue. I live in Colorado. I know what guns are for. I grew up in a rural part of the state. I've gratefully eaten venison shot by neighbors. I also know that good hunters don't take down a deer with a handgun.

Fuck the gun rights lobby.

My kids' safety is at stake at school, at the movies, on the street. We don't need more handguns. We need safe, sane, regulations that keep 19 year old punks from trying to rob a store and then totally fucking up and killing people with their guns. Or buying absurd numbers of weapons and incalculable amounts of ammunition and playing comic villain in a movie theater. Or getting all xenophobic and blowing away people at their place of worship because they look different. Or getting fed up and murdering American citizens at a political rally. There's no good reason for high-capacity clips or semi-automatic weaponry outside a war zone.

I am going now to get my kids and pretend that everything is okay, that it was just a precaution, but in my heart I'm just a little more afraid to go anywhere with my babies. Because I can't jump fast enough to get in front of a bullet, and losing them would rip my soul out.

Fuck "gun rights". What about MY rights to be safe and free of fear? That's in the Constitution, too, you know.

A Quiet Little Rant

I used to fill my days with noise -- music, talk, windows open to the world.  For the past few weeks, though, I've been choosing not to turn on the radio in the car, or while folding laundry in an empty house, or in the morning in the few minutes I have to catch the news before the whirl of children and dog and husband and breakfast and lunches to pack and so many other things begin to twist around me.  I am the eye of my family storm.

In seeking to create a quiet space around me, I feel increasingly assaulted by the piped in noise in every public space I come to.  I'm sure we've all heard the rants against blaring TVs in airports and at gas stations.  But what about restaurants, grocery stores, telephones on hold, and other places?  I took the kids to a movie last Saturday at a recently built outdoor shopping complex, and was annoyed by the strategically placed speakers along the street, pumping some generic rhythmic music toward my ankles, as if my feet could be hustled along by the latest pop star.  It seems not even the sidewalk is safe anymore.  Don't get me wrong -- I love my iPod with an immoral love, and having my personal tunes with me has been a salvation on more than one occasion.  But in those circumstances I am in charge of the genre, volume, and company with whom I share said music.  And I am amazed, sometimes, how turning a noise source off -- even sweet classical music -- can bring a sense of relief, as if the music has been literally pressing uncomfortably against me.

I understand the marketing behind a fast beat, or the idea that people feel more festive in a musical atmosphere.  But there are times when all it does is jangle the nerves and raise the volume.  Attending a recent birthday celebration at a restaurant, I asked the staff to lower the music.  No one else in my party could hear the drum beat that caught my attention, but, particularly since it was jazz and not rhythmic, it played into the frantic interactions at the table.  Once off, everyone slowed down, and throughout the restaurant people quieted and eased back a little in their chairs.  

As an armchair anthropologist, I wondered how many of our daily interactions would ease a little if we didn't have the added element of someone else's idea of tunes.  My three-year-old daughter understands this -- when she's grumpy, she orders me to turn off the radio.  The quiet soothes her, and often I, too, find myself winding down to the sweet sound of nothing.