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Showing posts from August, 2012

Growing up with guns

After two mass killings in a two-week period, I am way beyond upset. Way beyond sad. Way, way beyond. So let's talk about guns for a minute. I know a tiny bit about them. My Dad was a marksman in the European theatre in World War II. I think this actually might mean he was a sniper. I know from remarks in his diary, written while he was a P.O.W., that he shot a few people. OK, it was wartime, and that's what warriors do. Dad's view of killing in wartime was uncomplicated, and I don't know that he ever suffered pangs of guilt later. He did what the war demanded of him, including a seven-month stint in Stalag VII-A. He was a hero, in my eyes -- it was, after all, the Good War. Long before I was born, Dad was collecting guns. He loved to go to the practice range. He had ten or fifteen guns, safely locked in a cabinet in the den. I knew they were there. I was forbidden to touch them, and never had any interest in them anyway. The guns never seemed like a threat to me,