https://soundcloud.com/user937728827/politickin-me-off-gun-reform
On the night of Nov. 26, 2012, I had just gotten off work at Chick-fil-A and was ordering a peppermint milkshake from my friend Lydia. I remember every detail. I remember my phone ringing and it was my best friend, Jill, frantically crying, desperately trying to get the words out.
“Pat’s been shot.”
Pat was my best friend, my middle school boyfriend and long-term confidant. He was dead. After a night of drugs and partying, one of his friends thought it would be a good idea to play roulette, and with the utmost ignorance, held a revolver to Pat’s head, lined up with a chamber thought to be empty.
It was not.
I lost one of the most important people in my life that day and did not finish my milkshake. Instead I drove like a runaway prisoner to my boyfriend’s house and watched the news, waiting. I was praying I did not get the phone call from the hospital confirming his death. That call came later when I was at home, laying in bed. As I fell to the ground in tears, my life momentarily fell apart – all because of a gun.
Obama’s new gun law is a breath of fresh air for me. Are guns bad? No. However, bad people that have them are. People die from guns every day. People get angry and pull a trigger. People get stupid and pull a trigger. People accidentally pull triggers.
I understand a good majority of people will fight for gun rights, for both hunting and protection. The idea of killing animals for fun is another topic in itself, and most protection is from other guns. Seems to me like they are both pretty pointless reasons to own firearms.
Obama is making a lot of last-ditch efforts to do as much as he can in his last months in office. While it is a little too late, I applaud him on trying. It throws a lot at the current candidates for debates and revising campaign platforms, and these are issues the American people need to be addressing regardless.
I grew up in a gun-toting town. It is totally normal for everyone to have a rifle for hunting and a handgun for protection, usually hidden in a closet or displayed proudly in the back of a truck.
I never thought anything of it and even wanted a hunting license for myself. However, after losing Pat, watching live footage of the San Bernardino shootings and Sandy Hook (to name a few), it seems to me that guns are something we just simply can do without. Say what you want about Obama, but he hit the nail on the head with this one.
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