Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Firearms

[Sharon Villines (sharonvillines]

As the mother of a police officer, I would be very upset if he were not able
to visit me in cohousing or to raise his children in cohousing because he
always carries a gun.

He is trained to act in situations of danger and has a personal commitment
to protecting the safety of others. He walks, talks, and breaths security in
a way that most of us can only imagine as we remain blissfully unaware of
the risks around us.

When he became a law enforcement officer he became the target of those who
have grudges against police officers.  The minute he became an officer, he
became the symbol of all the bad cops in Los Angeles. And because of duties
that I can't discuss, he is the target of people who could turn up anywhere
and recognize him and shoot him.

He is also the young man who has been actively saving lives since he began
working on a volunteer fire department at the age of 18. He's the guy who
pulls people out of submerged vehicles in below freezing temperatures,
stands there directing traffic around burning cars that are about to blow
up, and takes the two-year old with a dangerously high fever to the hospital
and gets put in quarantine because it turns out to be viral meningitis.

The exiting processional (must have another name) at his graduation was a
funeral dirge played on bagpipes -- a  more eerie sound does not exist. It
was played in honor of all those officers who had gone before and died on
duty protecting others, and in whose footsteps he follows.

I understand the impulse to ban guns and sympathize with it. I cringe as
much as the next person at the thought of kids walking into schools and
killing all their classmates. But a blanket ban on guns is not the answer.

As much as controlling the impulse purchases and irresponsible possession of
guns will help to curb killing with guns, it is not a solution to violence.
I have much more violence in my heart several times a day than my son has
ever had in his, and he certainly has never even drawn his gun except on
defense of  himself or others.

Sharon
-- 
Sharon Villines, Editor
The MacGuffin Guide to Detective Fiction
http://www.macguffin.net
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington, DC
http://www.takomavillage.org