I was raised in New York by a father who didn't believe in owning or having a gun in the home. He was a Catholic by birth, but wasn't religious and never went to church. However, he was a honest hard working common man who cared for his family and neighbors. He served in the Navy during WWll, but never saw action as his carrier the Franklin Delano Roosevelt came late to the game. He made the papers "The NY Mirror" by catching a red snapper off the fantail on their maiden voyage to Rio De Janeiro. This man shaped my world as a child. His roughness was due to being raised with three brothers without a mother who passed when he was 8. Guided mostly by his older brother as my grandfather was busy chasing work & women. This made my father stern and moralistic. Tough love was the nature of his way. He told me once he didn't believe in having a gun in the home because in a moment of anger it might be miss used. I was raised with all the many toy guns, but I was never allowed to own any type of real gun including pellet or BB. As a young teen while playing with my friends BB gun I managed to shoot out the front teeth of another friend. Thank God for good insurance and dentists to repair the damage I had done. This incident comfirmed my father's fear of guns to me. The sixties confronted me with civil rights, the Vietnam War and the hippie peace movement. After high school while attending college I chose peace. Peace led me to both God and religion as I fought against the war. The conflict of living the American dream without violence played out in my heart, mind and life. I studied the scriptures in both The Bible and The Book of Mormon to resolve the confusion between war and peace. These scriptures gave me hope of the future day when peace would defeat war.
Alma 24
19 And thus we see that, when these Lamanites were brought to believe and to know the truth, they were firm, and would suffer even unto death rather than commit sin; and thus we see that they buried their weapons of peace, or they buried the weapons of war, for peace.
Isaiah 2:3-4
And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
This is my hope, but we live in today. So after 9/11 I purchased a shot gun and ammo which has never been used, but sits unloaded over our piano in support of our 2nd Amendment to help preserve my
