A Texan Take on Guns

you might be surprised

I grew up in this town. Someone sent me this archival photo of a popular annual event that was stopped in 1999 when a dozen students died because of a random accident. In Feb 2020, a 19yr old woman and her 20 yr old sister and a toddler were all shot nearthis location. It didn’t make national news, neither did the multiple shooting deaths in 2022, 2021, or any of the other years.

I was born in Texas. We had a six-foot rattlesnake in our dryer that my dad killed with a shovel while the four kids watched. When we propped the doors open so the breeze could come in, tarantulas the size of your open palm would lurk in the upper corner of the door and you’d go out the window to keep from having to pass beneath it. I lived in the country, where walking barefoot got the soles of your feet full of stickers.

Gun country.

In third grade, Thad got a BB gun for his tenth birthday. He was old for our grade and a big guy, and he was the first kid in the class to own a gun. He was also the school bully and the gun cemented that position. Everyone was either terrified of him or in awe or both. We never saw the gun, but we sure heard about it.

When I was in fourth grade, Teddy, one of the rich, popular boys everyone had a crush on, bragged a lot about his dad’s gun. His dad was safe with it, Teddy said, respect and awe in his voice. He kept it locked.

Everyone had a rifle rack if they drove a pickup. On your 16th birthday, someone invariably gave you the rifle to put into the rack.

But my mother was Lithuanian and to her, guns meant death and dislocation. Her family fled the forcible occupation of her homeland when she was two. Her…