Ladies & Gents:
So today sucks. Big time. I've been swingingly from sadness to horror to anger that it ever got this way. I'm a lot people better suited to tell you that story will. Instead, I'll tell you mine.
I was mugged at gunpoint in college. A friend and I were walking from a performing arts center back to campus, and were close enough to see baseball practice up head when we were joined by a man in an Colorado Avalanche jersey who pointed a gun at us.
You never know how you're going to react in that kind of situation until you're in it. In that moment, I felt like a lead blanket had been placed on top of me. I was flat calm and gave him my bag. I told my friend, who was hyperventilating, to give him hers. He was about to leave until he saw her gold necklace, then yanked it off her neck, and took mine off too.
The whole thing lasted under a minute. No one was hurt. I lost $15, a cheap sorority necklace, and a GAP bag.
I share this story because, when I see or hear people saying that the solution to shootings is for more people to be armed, I point to what happened that night, where me having a gun would have been useless, and might have resulted in someone dying instead. The safest I have felt since then has been when I was in England and in Canada, where they see American gun lust for what it really is: stupid, deadly insanity. This experience galvanized in me that I never wanted to own a gun, and every time someone argues this with me, I ask what it was like when a gun was pointed at their heads. The response is usually silence. If not, it's vocal pretzeling to get around the fact that they've never been in this kind of situation but still think they know better than me, the person who had a gun pointed at her head.
I wrote about this incident before if you want to take a look. If you choose to read the comments, prepare yourself. A lot of them are awful (and, looking back on it, a big sign as to how we got where we are today).
That's all I've got for right now. More next time.
Jen A. Miller
jenamiller.com
runningalovestory.com
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