We Need Parental Safety, Not Just Gun Safety

Friends of mine who have guns in a household with children don't want to believe that their home is actually less safe, not more. Those who believe in a society with no guns (me), and those who are training their kids on firearms at the age of 5, will never be able to agree on this.
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Left behind from the wake of the horrible tragedy that was the result of dumb parents letting their 9-year-old girl shoot an Uzi submachine gun, is a dead instructor whose wife is now a widow, a ruined little girl, and psycho Internet-trolls who believe that there was nothing wrong with this little girl handling such an obscene weapon -- a weapon that, in my learned opinion, should only be used by SWAT and the military. And maybe just the military.

But that's American Gun Culture as its finest.javascript:void(0);

I am a firm believer that even one gun in a world of 7.25 billion people makes the world unsafer. I'm sorry, but bringing home 20 poisonous rattle snakes makes you 20 times more likely to die from a snake bite. It's no different with guns. And gun supporters, citing a 223-year-old amendment that of course never foresaw submachine guns and AR-15s in the hands of untrained citizens, are wrong. You are wrong.

Your argument that "it's not guns that kill people, but people who kill people," is infantilizing and ignorant. But that's what I would expect from people who think the more memorable trip for their 9-year-old would be a shooting range and not Epcot. Was the soccer field under construction? Oh that's right. You were training her on the Uzi to fight ISIS. That's right.

Unfortunately, they were correct with this being memorable. Their precious and adorable little girl now has to live the rest of her long life with horrible guilt. Good luck footing the bill for her decades-long prescriptions and intense therapy sessions.

We're always quick to judge parents on how to parent their kids. I encourage you to continue to speak your minds about poor parenting that you see around town. Because contrary to what the parent being criticized thinks, there are no such things as "parental rights." Although there is a movement, of course, to amend the Constitution to include parental rights. Gun safety may be a lost cause, but parental safety will be the next fight.

I have this argument with friends of mine who have guns in a household with children. They don't want to believe that their home is actually less safe, not more. Those who believe in a society with no guns (me), and those who are training their kids on firearms at the age of 5, will never be able to agree on this. And I don't want to hear the anecdote that the gun in the house is there in case someone breaks in. Which is the frustrating part for me. Because more guns mean more opportunities for gun violence. I don't care if the gun sits in a locked cabinet folded up in your Gadsden flag. That is the funda-fucking-mental point that pro and anti gun supporters will never agree on. Which is why parenting has now become more dangerous than the Uzi. The Uzi, left alone in the middle of the desert, is safe. It only becomes less safe when a human picks it up. It becomes lethal when a kid picks it up.

If you're using your Amazon Prime subscription to buy every known book on child safety and guns, you've answered your own curiosities about your parenting skills. So please, don't have a child.

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