Feeling safe - Amendment 2

The following words appear in the Declaration of the Continental Congress, "Men trained in arms from their infancy, and animated by the love of liberty, will afford neither a cheap or easy conquest." I have been thinking of this a great deal the past few days. Twenty-five years ago, a madman and his wife took the children in my hometown elementary school hostage which eventually led to an explosion. The two perpetrators chose not to survive the episode, which was a relief in so many ways, but I would have been surprised if they had have survived anyway. In the aftermath of this nightmare, my grandpa took me on a walk in the area around the school and showed me where he and the other men in town had placed themselves, all armed with their rifles. There was so much comfort in this for me. I was so grateful that things had worked out the way they had and my cousins and friends who were in that school were all safe, but there was something so reassuring and sustaining in the thought of those people, armed and prepared outside of that building. In discussions with some of my friends who see things differently than I do, the argument has been made that perhaps the children were in more danger because of all of these guns pointed in their direction. When I hear this argument, I hearken back to those words from Declaration, "trained in arms from their infancy". I know that every person who wielded a rifle that day were indeed so trained and they understood the rifle to be a tool and understood the proper use of that tool. I am so grateful to have been raised with the kind of safety that I knew because all of my grandparents and my parents, aunts and uncles could use these tools to keep me safe and protected, whether from a human threat or even the occasional rabid badger...but that is another story. I feel that it is my responsibility to raise my children with the same sense of safety and protection and to also train them to offer the same to their children.