Posted 4/25/01 'Will a gun really help you?' Sunday Night, by MaryHelen Swanson How many of you thought youíd be flying around in saucer-like vehicles, wearing tin foil clothing, downing food pills for supper by this 21st century? Growing up in the 50s, that was a popular vision. It hasnít happened, though. Still, times have changed and many things are so different from the 50s that we could not imagine living today the way we did then. It is a fact that people will abide by rules and regulations that appeal to them and dismiss others that donít. While I try to follow rules, I believe literal translations of the Constitution (written well over 200 years ago) and the Bible (nearly 2000 years) can be serious business in the year 2001. Please understand, I believe there are worthy tenets in both by which I live. But literal translations of certain Bible passages would have us plucking out othersí eyes to get even (Exodus 21), a rather foolish premise. Likewise, arming ourselves for protection, as they did in the wilderness of early 1700 America, would be equally as ridiculous. To keep pounding on the idea that it is a ìfreedomî to carry a gun really bothers me. My opinion on the so-called right to bear arms? We donít live that way anymore. There are no dangerous wild animals outside our homes that will pounce on us while out foraging for berries. There are no hostile villains lurking in the woods ready to attack and kill us for our supplies or the furs we collected over the winter. More simply put, most of the reasons our forefathers included such things as the right to tote weapons, in a governing document hundreds of years ago, donít exist today. True, there continue to be vicious criminals who would do us harm. Will you have your gun ready, then, if that moment arrives? And, I ask you, in todayís society, if you had that weapon on your person, could you really use it? I think I might worry if many of you said yes. Are you ready to take responsibility for the death of another human being, even if in self defense? Are you ready to take responsibility if your child gets a hold of your handgun one day when you decide to leave it at home? Are you ready to take responsibility if it accidentally is discharged in public wounding or killing an innocent bystander? Are you ready to face the possibility of hurting or killing yourself? I also donít hold much to the helpless women defense. In all my years, even as an attractive young woman, I never felt ìhelplessî to the point I thought a gun would make me feel better. Women must be careful not put themselves in bad situations, true. We do not need to act helpless; we do need to be more aware of our surroundings. Even if Katie Poirer had a gun, could she have prevented her tragic ending? Her death was horrible, and I could hardly live with it myself if she were my daughter, but would a gun really have helped her? Was she the kind of young person who could have easily put a bullet into the flesh of another being? (She was too young to get a license to carry anyway). Preventing crime and getting to the root of anger and hatred should be a priority for our legislature, rather than deciding if we should be allowed to go back to Revolutionary War or Old West times in defending and protecting ourselves and our families. Guns? Iím not against them - for hunting, target shooting and collecting. I know I wonít be popular with these ideas, but I simply canít think of a moment when my life would have been safer had I been able to carry a concealed weapon. That includes two times when, as a young woman in the 1960s, I worked in highly volatile St. Paul and Minneapolis neighborhoods. As far as a deterrent? Facing a death sentence hasnít seemed to work, has it? ©Post Review