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A Gun Free Home by James Mason If there is one point in this short essay it is that the danger of guns to us in our daily lives, comes ultimately from within the society we are a part of and responsible for. Every fair chance, every concession, every excuse (most famously “gee why don’t you ban cars?”) the pro gun culture is allowed to get away with, is another day of shoot em up death tolls, USA style. Those who would encourage this clear failure of our past and of our present, by offering up Eddie the Camel (introductory) gun classes to children and endorse a fully armed populace (hidden guns of course), are truly the ones allowing the death toll to continue by delaying the better safety of all us. Evidence: the pro gun side spent eight years of very expensive lobbying fighting against legislation for a simple five-day waiting period for handgun purchases – the Brady Bill. The effectiveness of waiting periods in reducing violent death tolls is irrefutable – if thousands of angry and drunken men find obstacle to quick gun purchases, some lives will be saved. Disagree with this and you would disagree that water can be frozen. Thousands of lives would surely have been spared, had there been a national waiting period, years earlier. Its now been a year since I put in the ground, in front of my home, a sign that reads “Gun Free Home.” The sign is in two inch black lettering on white board and is eighteen inches in width and approximately one foot in height. It has sat undisturbed, in front of the mailbox, facing the street, about two feet off the ground, with weeds growing around it. I had wanted to do this for years, but had not lived on a property where it was possible. I do this because I am not a hypocrite. I have been a gun control advocate for several years. I’m pleased, but not surprised, to announce that for three hundred and sixty five days, no one was assaulted on my property. No one has attempted to break in. No one broke into my home while I was absent to steal guns and scatter them to cities and towns in central California. I didn’t have to pull a weapon on any one. Children came to my home and were curious and roamed and I didn’t worry about projectiles being fired through their small bodies. Lots of folks had fun, but no one got drunk, grabbed a gun and pointed it at a friend or relative in anger or in self defense. These non-events are not unique to having a particular sign in front of one’s house. These things are normal. Except in gun owner’s houses. Sure, you can find exceptions. There are gun owner households where no one has been shot, yet. Where no one has grabbed a gun in anger and aimed at a relative, a wife, or a mother in-law, yet. Where no one, or no ones’ brother or sister has shot themselves in the foot, or in the head, accidentally, yet. Something else I did this past year was to drive a motor vehicle every day, just as it was designed for, sometimes several times a day, without an accident, or a vehicular homicide. Several safety devices, all of which, at one time or another became Government mandated, were in place for my daily driving: seat belts, air bags, safety glass, bumpers, lights, mirrors, steel cage design, and so on. Before I left the house each day, I didn’t prepare myself to drive my vehicle into someone else in self- defense after disguising my car under my suit jacket. I don’t advocate piecemeal measures, which are run roughshod over by gun dealers and retailers traveling state-to-state, buying, and selling guns, and cheating the intents of our laws, as if they were wealthy people using a legal income tax loophole. I want full out Federalized Gun Control, much like Great Britain has had great success with. What does “great success with . . .” mean? It means significant reduction in the number and frequency of violent deaths and wounding. When fifty a day are shot down dead, instead of eighty, that will be success. When thirty a day are shot dead, instead of fifty, that will be a success.
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