What I Fear, What Made Me Drag my Feet on Gun Control: Brady-Style Gun Control

[Jennicut]

52. What some people want is for mass shootings or home invasions to never happen.

That is impossible, really. We do need better, more organized guns laws. We need better mental health benefits and better special ed programs in schools. We need to have an honest talk in this country about the glorification of violence we seem to have. We may need to improve school security in certain schools. But none of that means nothing bad will ever happen in the United States again. Including protecting yourself from a home invasion.

I know too much about home invasions. I wish I didn't know, really. I grew up in Cheshire, Connecticut. Down the street from the Petit family home invasion. Sorghum Mill Drive. I went there on Halloween nights. Had friends from middle school and high school that lived in that neighborhood. Mr. Petit did not own a gun but even if he did he was asleep when the bad men came and beat him with a baseball bat. His wife was asleep when they tied her up and then tied her daughters up. They are dead now. Except Mr. Petit who remarried and is due every right to have a new life after the hell he went through. My parents still live down the street. Cheshire went through hell too. My parents lock their doors now. People in Cheshire used to not.

Newtown was to me the town where my husband met his lead singer, bass player and drummer from the band he has had for over 10 years. Peaceful little town but nothing unusual about it in CT. Now it will be known as one of the worst school shootings in the US.

I know too much that there is no perfect solution to any of this. We need a balance between the rights of individuals and the rights of the public as a whole.