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

[Doris Hahn]

Good word, Mary.
Doris

On Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 12:45 PM, McCabe, Diann A <dm14 at txstate.edu> wrote:

>  Thank you Mary
> Diann McCabe
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Dec 29, 2012, at 7:22 AM, "mhampton at att.net" <mhampton at att.net> wrote:
>
>   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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