Not Owning a Gun Ever

I've waited and watched as several pundits have spoken out about the gun control issue, mostly horrified that it's taken the slaughter of so many for us to really start talking about it at all.

But I'm even more horrified by the NRA's response to it. Horror is the only word I can muster. It's heart-breaking that anyone would choose a gun over a child's life. The main speaker even said, "If you love your kids more than money" and went on to name all the things we must love more than our kids if we don't make guns as common as blackboards on school grounds. Only these people love their guns more than their kids. They love guns more than mercy, more than rational thought, more than God.

These are the same people who are stockpiling guns, raiding gun stores to get their hands on huge magazines and the worst kinds of weapons, for fear that these lethal tools may soon become illegal. They fear what will happen if only bad guys have guns, imagining a world where they hide in their own homes, afraid to go out for fear of being shot by such "bad guys."

Certainly, there are places in the world where this is common. The middle east is such a reality, where mere existence is dangerous, where people fear to walk in the streets yet also know they can die right in their own homes.

But these guys also have it wrong. It's not the "bad guys" that we have to fear. It's not some creepy Scrooge. Scrooge is US. He is all of us. He's our worstness, our ugly tendencies, our unreasonable fear and anger. I have no trust that I would do good with a gun in my house. What if my marriage went sour? What if I developed a mental illness, unnoticed and undiagnosed? What if I felt the whole world was falling apart, and the gun seemed a solution to this "problem?"

I'm not afraid of evil people. They are everywhere, in all of us. We all have the capacity to do evil. And we too often make the choice to act upon our evil inclinations. A gun isn't evil, but it makes our ability to act horribly all the easier. When we are under stress, when we hate and fear, we are capable of doing almost anything. The only person I can think of whom I would truly trust to never use a gun badly is Mother Theresa, and she's dead. I wouldn't even trust myself to own one.

That is why the idea of armed people in my children's school doesn't comfort me. They aren't "bad guys," but they are capable of doing evil all the same. What if one of them becomes romantically involved with a teacher? What if that relationship goes wrong? I trust policemen and soldiers, in general, to carry guns, but they are not perfect. We know of too many times when soldiers at war make horrible decisions and do horrible things. We know of cops who go bad, who use their guns on their families. Having a certain job does not make them infallible. And this latest school shooting proves that training someone to shoot a gun does not keep them from using that knowledge to do the very thing they shouldn't. There is no way to guarantee that someone given a skill will always use it for good.

Even if they intend to do only good, people make mistakes. Cops shoot someone dead, thinking he is armed, only to find they were wrong. Neighborhood watchers, intent on protecting the neighborhood, shoot an innocent child dead. Guns go off by mistake, even when owners believe they aren't loaded. Children find family guns and turn them on their friends. The intent to kill isn't in any of these acts, yet people die all the same.

That is why I will never own a gun. It is why I don't like the idea of my next door neighbor having one, either, especially one that can hold 30 rounds. My home is already dangerous enough. A child could drown in my pool or fall down the stairs, or cut themselves horribly on a kitchen knife. Or one of us could do something horrible with household tools. But a gun would make that sort of horror all the more possible, all the more destructive.

The answer to the school shooting isn't more guns. More guns will only make such a reality more likely. More guns will only make it easier for us to blow each other away. My kids' school is gun-free, and if I find out they plan to change that, I will do all I can to prevent it. I don't want my child's teacher armed.

And I sure as hell will never buy a gun and go to a licensed shooting gallery to shoot, for doing so in this country requires I join the NRA.

And THAT will never, ever happen.

If I Were Dead, Would that Get Me Published?

First of all, I'm not dead. This is not some cousin sitting at my house and hacking into my computer right after my funeral (though that would make an interesting short story).

Nope. I'm still alive and kicking. And that makes my writing worth less than my mid-sleep drool. No, that's not true. I'm too used to writing fiction, it seems. I don't drool. Perhaps my writing is worth less than my toothpaste foam? I do actually brush my teeth. A lot. And I floss, too.

But I digress. I spent the last week or so reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and the first 100 boring pages left me wondering why an editor didn't tell the writer to cut half of the exposition at the beginning. Or all of it. Then I realized that the writer was dead. An editor couldn't exactly cut it out over the author's dead body, could he? Or could he?










I know the book is a bestseller. I don't mean to criticize, really. But I did wonder whether the book is not far more popular because its author is dead. In the same way that an artist's paintings suddenly cost twice as much when the artist is no longer around to paint any more of them. 

And I still wish the first part had been edited down a LOT. And I didn't find the prose in the least bit "steamy," as the back cover promised. I wish I'd liked the characters more. I wish the justified deaths of the bad guys had been more satisfying. I wish there had been more suspense. More than anything else, I wish the author were still alive so that he could revise a little, improve, and make his books utterly spectacular.

I guess that makes me grateful. My best draft of any of my books isn't very good, but I'm not dead. I have time still to work on them.

What have I learned from all this, besides the fact that I hate exposition?

1. I'm not dead. (Whew!)
2. I don't want to be dead.
3. My writing still needs work.
4. If I don't become a published author until after I'm dead, that will stink big time.
5. I need to get to work on my writing!!!!

Come to think of it, so do you! You won't live to be 300, so you might as well get to work on your big life's project right now. Go do it. Get off this page. Stop wasting time reading my drivel and create some of your own. And then revise it. Cut out the damn exposition. Make it better.

Geez, are you still here? Go! Really! Why are you still reading this!?

Not Writing--Tending the Sick

This week my free time has been spent on something more serious. Mary Jean, a dear friend of mine here in my new hometown in Georgia, was diagnosed with cancer, and, given her health, was unable to go through treatment for it.

Instead of writing, I spent several mornings and afternoons with this sweet woman, reading to her, talking with her, fetching her grape juice and ice chips, and holding her hand as she explained to me how sorry she was. She was ready to go, she said, but she didn't think I was ready for her to go.

She was right. I wasn't ready. But I was so grateful to have these hours to spend with her.

On Friday they brought her husband from his nursing home to visit her one last time, and her house was filled with friends and relatives. And late on Friday night, dear Mary Jean passed away.

I didn't waste a moment. Not one second of that time was a waste. I worked on my son's comforter while I was there, and for the rest of my life, when I see that quilt, I will think of Mary Jean.

And I did write. I wrote a poem for her, while she slept:

FOR MARY JEAN

The birds are calling

For you

Mary Jean

You will fly

Away

Soon

Too soon for me

I promise

I won't forget

The patch of sunshine

Lighting your angel hair

The books

The stories

The breaths we shared

As our two lives

Connected

For that too short moment

Before you flew

Away

Before you followed

The birds that called for you

Into the sky.