Reply #7: This Ohioan [View All]

doesn't know WHAT or HOW to feel about it. A year ago, I would have been "up in arms", so to speak. I was a Million Mom March member and Brady Group member, if that gives you an idea of where I was coming from.

But since I was robbed at gunpoint in my work parking lot one evening last August, I don't know what to feel anymore. HE had the weapon, HE had the means, with just one second's squeezing of a trigger, to end my life just like that, to leave my son motherless and my parents to raise him, and I had NOTHING! I can still feel him jamming the cold barrel into my ribs each time he told me I was lying because I had no more money to give him, and the overwhelming, all-consuming, indescribable, unbelievable panic and terror throughout the whole thing. When he moved it from my ribs to my neck and demanded my PIN# for my ATM card, I thought I would die of a stroke or heart attack right there. I NEVER EVER want to feel that helpless and powerless ever again. If HE had a weapon he could use to terrorize me with, why shouldn't I be able to have something as well?

OTOH, people have told me that it very well may not have made any difference even if I'd had a weapon, and I'm still not totally convinced that this is the way to go and I'm still not totally happy with this bill. Now I'll have to worry about, if I accidentally piss someone off, will they whip out their gun and express their displeasure (especially on the road). Everywhere I go I'll be nervous.

So I go back and forth on it, obviously.