Late last night, a quiet knock at the door. I assumed it was our daughter Polly, home from her shift at Safeway. The pets thought so too; when I got to the door three dogs and a cat were lined up waiting to greet her. She’d locked her keys in her car somehow, and knowing her mom was probably asleep decided not to ring the doorbell. She knows I’m usually up at that time of night and would hear her knock. I let her in. No muss, no fuss.
Donna’s usually in bed by nine, but I stay up until a little before midnight, sitting in the family room with a book or the iPad. The reading lamp’s on and visible through the window near the front door; so’s the porch light, left on for our daughter. Some nights Polly gets home around eleven; other nights not until the wee hours, long after I’ve turned off the reading lamp and gone to bed. But at the very least the porch light’s on, while other homes in our neighborhood are dark. Should a teenaged girl or boy, white or black or brown, get lost near Houghton Road and Catalina Highway, ours might be the door they come to for help. I’m not saying I want strangers knocking on my door late at night, but if they do I’m not going to shoot them.
Yes, I have a gun, but it’s locked in a safe in the bedroom. How many armed homeowners, hearing strange noises late at night, have wound up killing or maiming their own children and spouses? I bet more than a few. When Polly was a teenager, she’d sneak in and out through a bedroom window. Back in those days I’d often as not be drunk when she’d make a stealthy entrance at oh-dark-thirty. Those memories flashed through my mind the night I brought the pistol into our house; I went back the next day for a safe, and it’s been locked up ever since.
I should have thought things through a little harder before buying the pistol. Really, the only threat hereabouts is a home invasion, and if they ever come for us, I won’t know they’re here until they kick in the door and pour inside with guns drawn. It’s not like they’re going to call ahead and give me time to open the safe and arm myself. The only thing that pistol is really good for is offing myself if the alternative is struggling through a long & painful terminal disease.
Should I be more worked up over the possibility of a home invasion? Sure, they happen, but you know, I’m just not seeing a wave of them in the news. Then again, I don’t watch Fox. If I did, I expect I’d believe they happen all the time. The asshole who shot that boy in Kansas City, I read, is a member of Fox Nation. Apparently that’s the exculpatory defense he and his racist supporters have seized upon.
Nancy Nall, a journalist and blogger I quite respect, has this to say:
… Fox, and others, many others, have made their profits on scaring the shit out of old people. For decades. I am absolutely no fan of Michael Moore, but the part in “Bowling for Columbine” where he points out the way TV news relentlessly, endlessly deals in fear? That part was dead-on. And Fox is the worst of the lot, so when that old man saw a black kid on his porch and just assumed he was there to do harm? That is something that can also be laid at the doorstep of Fox News, Sinclair Broadcasting, and many others.
Almost everyone I’ve ever known who keeps a loaded gun next to the front door? Lives in the country, where violence almost never happens, except when it’s perpetrated … by them.
Which almost sounds like she’s buying the excuse. I don’t think that’s what she means. I for sure don’t buy it. As with ignorance being no excuse for breaking the law, falling for racist lies and propaganda cannot ever excuse shooting someone who hasn’t threatened you. Then again, there’s a powerful argument to be made for pulling Fox News’ broadcasting license, along with the licenses of television stations owned by Sinclair and most of AM talk radio — while white supremacist lies and propaganda can’t excuse shooting people who haven’t threatened anyone, broadcasting those lies and propaganda around the clock surely sets the stage for it, especially with the subset of our population just itching to use their guns anyway.
Side thought: remember when Republicans and the NRA started pushing for open carry laws, how they assured us it was okay, that schools and churches and shopping malls could declare themselves gun-free zones if they wished, and how almost as soon as states went open carry Republicans and the NRA started fighting against gun-free zones? I’m wondering how long it’ll be before they outlaw home gun safes and force us all to keep one under the pillow.