2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
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This journalist who writes for Salon hates guns....can't stand them......and then......some nut job started to stalk her......
I was anti-gun, until I got stalked
“You need to arm yourself.”
I blinked at the Portland police officer in my living room. This uniformed bear of a man — packing a gun, a nightstick, a radio and who knew what else — was responding to an ongoing stalker problem that had started several months earlier. I’d received letters, a phone call, a few packages and several e-mails from this unbalanced stranger who’d read a few newspaper stories I’d written and taken a shine to me. When the latest letter arrived — mentioning my boyfriend, Mike, thoughts on religion, and a trip I’d taken but hadn’t told anyone about — I was seriously alarmed.
But get a gun? Surely, I’d misheard him.
“Getting a concealed carry permit isn’t hard,” the officer continued. “And they make ladies’ purses with concealed weapons compartments.”
In that moment, I understood the phrase, “blood turning to ice.” I’m afraid of guns. When you get right down to it, I abhor them. I used to date a guy who owned a handgun and regularly trekked into the woods with his friends to shoot. I made him move the small gun safe from beneath the bed to another room before I’d agree to stay overnight.
But that morning was like a perfect storm of firearms. The first thing Mike had said to me when I opened my eyes — hours before the officer made his suggestion, before my neighbor confided she’d been thinking of getting a gun for hiking and kayaking trips, before my retired military uncle e-mailed to say that arming myself probably wouldn’t be a bad idea — was, “Maybe you should get a gun.”
I was anti-gun, until I got stalked
“You need to arm yourself.”
I blinked at the Portland police officer in my living room. This uniformed bear of a man — packing a gun, a nightstick, a radio and who knew what else — was responding to an ongoing stalker problem that had started several months earlier. I’d received letters, a phone call, a few packages and several e-mails from this unbalanced stranger who’d read a few newspaper stories I’d written and taken a shine to me. When the latest letter arrived — mentioning my boyfriend, Mike, thoughts on religion, and a trip I’d taken but hadn’t told anyone about — I was seriously alarmed.
But get a gun? Surely, I’d misheard him.
“Getting a concealed carry permit isn’t hard,” the officer continued. “And they make ladies’ purses with concealed weapons compartments.”
In that moment, I understood the phrase, “blood turning to ice.” I’m afraid of guns. When you get right down to it, I abhor them. I used to date a guy who owned a handgun and regularly trekked into the woods with his friends to shoot. I made him move the small gun safe from beneath the bed to another room before I’d agree to stay overnight.
But that morning was like a perfect storm of firearms. The first thing Mike had said to me when I opened my eyes — hours before the officer made his suggestion, before my neighbor confided she’d been thinking of getting a gun for hiking and kayaking trips, before my retired military uncle e-mailed to say that arming myself probably wouldn’t be a bad idea — was, “Maybe you should get a gun.”
