By John Bassett McCleary
Written in 1989

Guns Do Not Protect Your Family!  Stop using that as an excuse for owning firearms.
Having a gun in your home greatly increases the chances that a family member will die.  It is a fact!
Numbers show us that, for every one criminal who is subdued by a household gun, there are literally hundreds of family members who are killed in gun accidents at home, not to mention all the thousands of friends and family members who are killed with a household gun in fits of passion.
The facts show that you are actually putting your family in peril by owning a gun.  This alone would cause a rational person to dispose of his weapons.  But then, we are not dealing with rational thought, are we?  Let’s face it, we are dealing with the male macho ego.
Don’t use “the right to bear arms” excuse for your reasoning.  Don’t dishonor the fathers of our country by saying that they meant citizens should own half a dozen assault rifles, Mac-10s and nine millimeter semi-automatics.
Don’t offend the writers of the Second Amendment by thinking they intended it to be used to justify the indiscriminate sale of deadly weapons to just about anyone who can pull a trigger.
Please, let’s start thinking with our heads rather than other parts of our anatomy.  If you own guns, you should look deeply inside yourself to see why you really own them.  Understand where this urge for weapons comes from.  Could it be less to protect your family than to enhance your own image?
Men use guns, cars, clothing, sports, bodybuilding, sex, power and money to enhance their image.  It’s part of life, and most of those sublimations are relatively harmless.  But guns are not.
We have supposedly gone beyond the days of the Wild West.  But some men are trying to drag us back into those times when men were measured by the size of their guns.
Wake up!   Having the bigger gun does not make you the bigger man.  It makes you a weak man hiding behind a big gun.  If you have such a fixation, seek help.
Although most women don’t have such fixations, they often humor their men.  Women, tell your men that you like them just as much, maybe even better, without that cold, steel rod.  You may be saving the life of one of your family members.
But, if your man must own a gun, urge him to do so with common sense.  Keep it locked up and unloaded.  Teach every member of your family to treat every gun as if it were loaded, even though it isn’t.  Never ever, ever point a gun at another person unless you wish them dead.
Keep the gun and the ammunition in separate places.  Put the ammunition someplace where anyone looking for it will have plenty of time to think about what they are doing and cool down, if need be.
So you might get robbed, but the chances are greater that you will be saving the life of a family member.
The gun lobbyists say, “If guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns.”  The truth of the matter is that most gun homicides are perpetrated by people who were law-abiding citizens until the moment when they shot someone.  Most gun violence is a crime of opportunity. The availability of so many guns is what makes the criminal and causes the deaths.
I think the NRA is misguided right now, not because they put guns into the hands of criminals, but because they put them into the hands of potential criminals. Remember, keeping one questionable freedom is foolish if it jeopardizes all of our other freedoms combined.  Death ends all your freedom.
When a danger to society is recognized, a rational society will place restrictions on that danger.   We have automobile speed laws, which some people feel infringe on their rights, but these laws save lives.  It’s about time we became civilized and started considering more stringent gun laws, too.
These are only my opinions.  This is a free country, and I have the right to my opinions, as you have the right to yours.  But please, use the gray matter that God gave you, and think about what I have said.  Don’t let your ego kill someone you love.

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