[Oe List ...] Gun Culture? In the home? Beyond?

[LAURELCG at aol.com]

Thank you, Mary.
 
Jann
 
 
In a message dated 12/28/2012 4:22:37 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
mhampton at att.net writes:

 
Unlike most of my generation and maybe the two after it; I did not grow  up 
with a gun culture in my home.  Because my father had died after a  
gun-related accident my mother decided my brother and I would not have guns in  our 
lives.  (This specifically meant John would not get toy guns as  gifts.)  
As I remember, this lasted until I was seven or eight and John  was three or 
four.  Then my mother's father took me out and had me shoot  a gun.  I was 
turned off enough or at least unexcited by the  experience so that I never 
remember doing it again. I asked my mother  about this Christmas evening this 
year.  She remembers our  (small town, South Texas Hispanic) babysitter 
giving John a set of cowboy  pistols earlier than that.  John grew up to be in 
the Corps at Texas  A&M and then do 20 years active duty in the Army.  The 
same training  does not necessarily communicate the same values.


As an adult, well after my active Order days, I became a Quaker.  My  
favorite short hand definition of the Religious Society of Friends is that we  
"respond to that of God in every person".  That implies that we are not  
confronted with evil "men" or evil women.  We are certainly confronted  with evil 
action or at least acts universally regarded as painful and harmful.  We 
cannot institutionalize everyone who is strange or even clearly  outside the 
mainstream.  We could decide to listen in family and others  close see 
someone as dangerous.  (The family of the paranoid  schizophrenic executed by the 
state of Texas for murdering several people come  to mind.  They had tried 
for years to get help for him.)  I was very  struck by the article from the 
Buddhist monk who grew up in Newtown and wrote  to Adam, the shooter.

We choose what to own of the surrounding, prevasive values and  culture.  
Community safety certainly seems a less red flag way into the  discussions.
 
May we all be blessed with eyes to see and hearts to respond to human  need.
 
Blessings for the New Year.
 
mary  hampton



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