Another mis-guided
mom story
by Cindy Rock
CindyRock@KeepAndBearArms.com
After calming down from my outrage and then forwarding this to a few friends
and fellow Second Amendment supporters, it was suggested that I submit it to be
posted as an article on the website. As an introduction, I will submit the
e-mail I received from my employer.
It is my belief that he is proud of his wife's opinions and, perhaps, he
hoped to sway my vote concerning the right to keep and bear arms. He certainly
"hit his mark" but it ricocheted and I doubt the outcome is for what
he had hoped! Please note that I have not changed any of her writing. The text
is just as I received and, therefore, any and all errors are as typed (as will
be any of mine in response as well). The only change made has been to leave off
her signature since I have not asked permission to share her opinion.
"Dear Friends,
Last year we experienced first hand what I've only read about in the
newspapers or watched on television. Every time I heard about the latest
shooting of our children my heart sank wondering how we got so out of control
in our country.
The "right to bear arms" and it's intention by our forefathers
has changed. It's the year 2000 and we have a very different society now. Our
children are now exposed to violent movies, graphic television coverage of
school shootings, road rage where guns have killed others, the decline of
respect for another's life, the fear of guns that could be brought to their
own school, the killing of the boy at Paradise Valley Mall, the killing of the
boy who attended Desert Shadows HS at 32nd Street and Shea at a party (he was
a friend of my friends son - a great athletic student who was at the wrong
place at the wrong time), my old Jazzercise instructor friend who lost her
daughter at age 17 to a random shooting at a high school party in the desert
of Cave Creek (she was a honor student, cheerleader and in student
government), and now the tragic death of our friend's daughter, SHANNON SMITH,
to a random gun shot that was fired into the air and lodged in the back of her
head has she talked to a friend on the phone in the security of her own
backyard.
Please consider carefully the direction of our future and the safety of our
children when you vote on Tuesday. Thanks"
My first response was, not surprisingly to those of you who comprehend and
are fighting for what our forefathers' intent was, outrage. After a few days,
however, I calmed down (a little) and decided that perhaps I would feel better
if I sent her a thoughtful response. I may or may not do so, considering that
her husband is my employer and I still cherish the ability to live in a
relatively secure and comfortable home that my earnings as his employee permit
me.
Before any of you become outraged at that confession, please know that I have
attempted to point out to her the fallacy of her beliefs but, apparently, to no
avail. When I tried to speak to her about it, it was after biting my tongue
quietly on several occasions, the first one being after the Columbine
debacle when she proudly announced to me that she had decorated her family van
with "Wake up, America" and some other such nonsense, to the general
effect that guns are the problem and if we would just get rid of the guns, there
will be no more problem. The next time she came in and self-righteously
proclaimed, "Did you see me on the news at the MMM downtown this
weekend?"
At this exhilarated outburst from her, I could no longer stand quietly and
pretend not to hear. It was an anxious moment for me but I felt much better
after I stood my ground.
I told her that, no, I hadn't seen her -- as I handed her some literature I
had just printed from KABA about our Second Amendment Rights -- and she gasped,
"You're on the other side!" I nodded and before I could explain why,
she quickly asked, "Were you demonstrating at the march?" I said no,
that I had not attended the march. She then told me, "They were calling us
names. They were calling us commie mommies!" I think that moniker really
stumped her. She could not make the connection. Perhaps she was absent from
school on the day they taught the rest of us about communism.
I explained that I didn't attend the march due to how emotionally charged
this issue was and that I didn't think my increasingly outraged presence at that
point in time would do anything to further the cause for which I stood before
her that day. I explained that I felt my beliefs would best be supported by
continuing to educate myself and others to what our future will be like if those
in her camp win their war.
I attempted to explain to her that I agreed it was a terrible tragedy that
this young woman had been taken from her parents and friends in this manner but
that this tragic incident would not have been prevented if guns were outlawed,
to which she quickly inserted, "Oh, we don't want them to be outlawed. We
just want registration to be a requirement." To this statement, I somewhat
less calmly informed her that I had been researching the issue and my sources
informed me that in every other area where registration had become a
requirement, within a varying period of time, confiscation of those registered
firearms was what followed. Perhaps she was out of ammunition [pun intended], as
she suddenly remembered an important appointment she had and, agreeing to read
the literature I provided, quickly hurried out the door.
She has never mentioned it again to me. I suspect she threw away the
information I provided as soon as she was out of sight. I realize that when
people would rather believe in unjustified causes, they really are not
interested in the truth of the matter.
Perhaps that is why I still don't know if I will send this missive back to
her and to her husband, my employer. They are slightly older than I and seem
very confident that there should be no question but that they are right. In her
defense, I can say that she seems to earnestly do the best she can at mothering
her children, the youngest of whom is about 10 and the eldest is 18 and off at
college. Let's hope the children learn to think for themselves. After all, it's
their children's future as well as my own that these well-intentioned parents
are so eager to cast aside.
Through my careful and cautious self-education, I have come to understand
this issue enough to be quite confident that whoever shot that bullet into the
air (and other like-minded individuals) are not the kinds of citizens who obey
any of the existing laws. By no stretch of my imagination can I envision that
instilling yet more laws to register our firearms will prevent anyone as
careless as they from similar irresponsible behavior.
Perhaps education is the answer. Perhaps not. I am told that the lady who
wrote the e-mail to which I reply here is a college graduate.
Another pro-arms friend recently told me as we discussed what could be done
to save our rights and what we can do if we can't save them, "Forgive them
for they know not what they do." I would not make much of a spiritual
leader as I am outraged that there are those who have the self-righteous
audacity to insist on imposing their factually incorrect beliefs on me.
I don't know the answers, either, but I know that registration isn't it. And
neither is confiscation.
"Question authority, before it questions you."
Sincerely,
CindyRock@KeepAndBearArms.com
P.S. Perhaps her false sense of security comes from the fact that they live
in an exclusive gated, guarded community far-removed from where I live. Let's
hope for their sakes if they get their way through legislation that they can
keep up the payments where they reside or they might have to live in the kind of
world which they envision for us.
Beautiful, Cindy. Have you shown her The
Questions yet? ~~ KABA