Because You Can????????

Now let me see, a man is caught carrying an assault rifle at an appearance by the President of the United States and he is still walking around freely? A news organization has films of other civilians carrying guns at an appearance by the President of the United States? They are all walking around freely? THERE IS SOMETHING GRAVELY WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE!

In 1963, there was a man in Texas carrying a rifle during an appearance by the President of the United States. That rifle carrier shot and killed the President of the United States. Why? Because he could? That infamous day in history still sticks in my mind and it always will. I was alone in the newspaper office that day. Because of my college class schedule, I reported to the newspaper office at shortly after 11:30. Officially, the office was closed but in order to get my scheduled work hours completed, I went in that day during the lunch break. The office and print shop were quiet...everyone else had gone to lunch. I had story notes to work on and in the quiet of the office, I could stare at the typewriter, get my thoughts together and write. I remember the phone ringing and I thinking it may have been my editor, W. Foster "Pap" Adams, I answered the phone. The voice on the other end of the line asked what I had heard about Dallas...that some one had said the President had been shot, All I could say was that I didn't know for sure and since I was the only person in the office, I could check but as soon as the next person came in, I would call back and let them know.

I remember thinkinbg that this couuldn't be true...shooting a President didn't happen in a civilized world..after all this was 1963...not 1865...people didn't do such crazy stuff...did they? I called my roommate and asked her to bring the portable radio when she left our dormitory room on her way to class. I remember Marguerite arguing with me...she was listening to the news. I remember telling her that it was my damn radio and it had batteries in it...to just bring it when she came by the newspaper office since she had to pass that building on her way to class.

By the time I actually had the radio..it was obviously true,,,not only had someone shot the President of the United States...someone had killed the President of the United States. The news was confirmed and I like many young people (and some not so young people) across the nation was in a state of shock. How could this be? If "they" could shoot and kill John Fitzgerald Kennedy in broad, open, daylight in Dallas, Texas, in front of a crowd.....were any of us safe...anywhere...anyhow? Students banded together in small groups...we desperately needed the proximity of one another...that proximity gave us the illusion of safety,,,maybe we could protect one another,,,more reasonably..we felt an illusory safety in numbers.

That day and every day until John Kennedy was laid to rest in Arlington Cemetery...we clung to each other and to our mentors..our teachers,,,our elder friends. None of us wanted to be alone...we stayed in our small groups..we grieved the loss of innocence,,,the anguish of reality hit hard. Little did we realize that this was only the first of three asassinations that would disrupt our illusion of safety over the next five years.

The governmental powers assured us that our president would be safe..that he would be protected and that we would not experience such a calamity again. I think I actually believed that until it was announced that Lyndon B. Johnson would speak the the University of Kentucky in the spring. Since I had never seen a sitting president, I wanted to attend this speech. Our newspaper went through all the pre scribed steps to get appropriate credentials for me (according to a two page letter from the U.S. Secret Service). The day arrived and I dressed (professionally) to catch the bus from Berea to Lexington. Since I would be catching the last bus in that evening, I grabbed my jeans and a sweat shirt, rolled them up military style (like my brother had taught me) and placed them in my handtooled leather shoulder bag that my father had given me. My camera (that precious Argus C-3 that I had purchased from a photographer friend) was put atop my clothes and locked in my bag. Off I went to the UK field house...to the appropriate press entrance...where I pulled out my credentials...expecting to be searched or at least checked in by the Secret Service. NOBODY checked me in...nobody searched my purse...all I did was walk in. (That's right - I walked in unchallenged, unverified, unchecked and I walked out steaming mad!) I don't remember what President Johnson said that day but I remember telling "Pap" Addams that there was no way I would write a story on the speech but I had plenty to say. That was my first editorial and he gave be my precious by-line....focused pointedly on what I considered a total lack of security surrounding the President of the United States!

Here we are today in the 21st Century. Lunatics are irresponsibly carrying guns and assault weapons near where our PRESIDENT is speaking and they are not arrested...not stopped...allowed to go on about their lunatic way! The 44th President of the United States is a black man and whether a threat is real or merely implied doesn't make a damn bit of difference, Don't hand me that garbage about the Constitutional right to carry a weapon. My father was a gun collector, my brother was a gun collector, I was taught to handle a gun when I was quite young. I don't need to brag about my competence with a weapon and I don't need to carry a weapon in a public place (Of course, I am a black woman...I would have been thrown under the jail house if I had been caught publicly with a weapon.... permit or no permit!) What happened to responsibility,rational thought, and common sense? Why buy the excuse..."because I can!" Many individuals in black communities have had guns stripped from them but these other people can carry guns around our PRESIDENT and nothing is done? There is obviously a disconnect here.

Lets get my position clearly defined. For years I was the gun owner in my house. My father gave me my first gun when I was single and lived in a northern Ohio city. One night some would be thief tried to break in my house. This person was not successful for two reasons. The strong, solid wood door was double bolted and there was a set of sharp teeth barking loudly on the other side of the door.....which imjediately resulted in all the lights in the house being turned on. Immediately...breaking in that house was too risky. The next day I drove home and picked up a shotgun and shells loaded with buckshot. If ever I was forced to load and shoot that gun, the intruder would probably still be alive but in a great deal of pain as the shot was picked out of his torso in the emergency room! There are other factors here that must be considered. Did I know how to use the gun? Yes, and that was a lesson learned from the respnsible adults in my childhood. REMEMBER...THAT GUN IS NOT A TOY! Later in life, when my children were small and I was on the highway between the East Coast and home in the mountains, there was a weapon in my vehicle...a loaded one that I could get to if necessary. Did I know how to use that weapon? NEVER POINT A GUN AT ANOTHER HUMAN BEING UNLESS YOU INTEND TO USE IT! The last gun I owned, I kept for sentimental reasons...it was my father's and since I am now old...he no longeer lives except in memory. The key to gun ownership is RESPONSIBILITY.

I do not think carrying an assault weapon in a crowd, in an urban area is responsible ownership. Personally unless one is a weapons dealer (or an assassin), why own a weapon that is designed to kill other human beings? Why would any sane individual carry a weapon to a political rally? The implied threat is so obvious that a child would run screaming and given the history of the last sixty years in this country, I would be leaving promptly. If I have to carry a weapon to a political rally to feel safe....I don't need to be there and neither does any other rational person. GUNS ARE NOT TOYS nor are they justification for bragging rights. There is a huge difference between sportsmen who own hunting weapons or folk who keep a secured gun to protect the safety of their home and these lamebrains who play "dare me" with their "because I can" excuses. "Methinks something is rotten in Denmark" oh,oh....I mean Arizona!