Revolvers and Pistols

My brother Don has guns. He keeps a revolver near his bed. If a thief breaks into his house, Don says he is ready to kill.

Fort Worth, where we grew up, is a city, never in the top 40, but not a small town. We had “bad” neighborhoods and “good” neighborhoods, with neighborhood shops, and a “downtown” with tall buildings and department stores. I never thought it was a dangerous place to live.

Daddy had a gun, a small black pistol, which was kept hidden under his handkerchiefs in a box on his dresser. My brothers and I were warned never to touch any of Daddy’s “things.” As far as I know that gun was never fired.

Our grandmother also had a gun, a big revolver. As an 80-year-old woman sleeping in the front bedroom of my parents’ house, she slept with that gun under her pillow, just in case some deranged maniac broke in and tried to rape her. My brother Preston, after he came home from Vietnam, would come in the front door at 2 a.m. I was afraid our grandmother would wake up, thinking he was that dreaded intruder, and shoot him. She was deaf. She kept snoring, no matter how much noise Preston made stumbling drunkenly through the dark house.

When our grandmother died, each of my brothers asked if he could have Nonna’s gun. I don’t know how Mother decided which of the three got it. All three of my brothers became gun collectors.

In today’s newspaper I read about a young woman who carried her pistol with her wherever she went, even to her son’s soccer games. She is dead, killed by her husband with her own gun in what police believe was a murder-suicide. An accompanying article reported that people who own guns are four times more likely to be killed, even in “bad” neighborhoods, than those who do not have guns.

I never owned a gun, and I am never afraid, although I ived alone for all but four of the past 30 years. When I was married, my husband and I lived in or near big cities: Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Dallas. In the 1960's, Detroit was reputed to be a “dangerous” place; we lived in the “safe” suburb of Birmingham. We never felt the need for a gun to protect our home and our family.

I do not understand the fascination with guns. Maybe someone can explain it to me.