Section B

Should I Have a Gun?

I own a black gun with a brown handle. It holds five bullets and stays loaded by my bed.

I've always advocated gun control; the odd thing is I still do. It wasn't ignorance of crime statistics that previously kept me from owning a gun nor thinking I was immune to violence.

1. What is the purpose for the writer to have a loaded gun since she is in favor of gun control?

I assumed because I didn't believe in violence, because I wasn't violent, I wouldn't be affected by violence. I believed my belief in the best of human nature could make it real.

I should transport the gun from my residence to my vehicle, but I don't. What the gun is capable of, what it is intended for, still frightens me more than what it may prevent. If I carry my gun and I am attacked, I must use it to kill, not just injure.

2. Why did the writer choose not to take her gun along with her since she has her gun loaded?

I have confronted an attacker in my imagination, not in reality. A man is walking down the street. I lock my car and walk to my apartment with my key ready. Before I reach the door, I think I hear a voice say, money. Before I open the door I hear a voice and turn to see the man with a gun.

He is frightened. I am frightened I will scare him and he will shoot, or I will give him my money and he will still shoot. I am also angry because a gun is pointed at me by someone I've never met and never hurt.

Something makes me uncomfortable about this imagined robbery, something I don't want to admit, something I almost intentionally omitted because I am ashamed.

3. What, do you think, is the something that makes the writer feel uncomfortable?

I understand why I imagined being robbed by a man: They're physically more dominating and I've never heard of anyone being robbed by a female.

But why is he a black man? Why is he a Negro male with a worn T-shirt and shining eyes? Why is he not a white man?

4. Why is it that the writer's imagined robber is always a man and especially a black man?

I imagine standing in a gas station on Claiborne and Jackson waiting to pay the cashier when a black man walks up behind me. I do not turn around. I stare ahead waiting to pay. I try not to reveal I feel anxiety just because a black man has walked up behind me in a gas station in a bad neighborhood and he does not have a car.

5. What does a bad neighborhood mean here?

I imagine another possibility. I am walking with my gun in my hand when I hear the voice. The man mustn't have seen my gun. I get angry because I am threatened, because someone is endangering my life for the money in my pocket.

I turn and without really thinking, angry and frightened, I shoot. I kill a man for $50 or perhaps $100. It doesn't matter that he was trying to rob me. A man has died for money, not my money or his money, just money. Who put that price on his life?

6. What is the writer's level of comfort with killing a robber in self-defense?

I remember driving one night with my friend in her parents' automobile. We stopped at a red light at Carlton and Tulane where a black man was crossing the street in front of us. My friend automatically locked the doors.

I am disgusted she saw the man as a reminder to lock her doors. I wonder if he noticed us doing so. I wonder how it feels when people lock their doors at the sight of you.

7. What does the writer intend to say when she finds her friend locking the doors at the sight of a black man?

I imagine another confrontation in front of my apartment. I have my gun when a man asks for money. I am angry and scared, but I do not use the gun. I fear what may happen if I don't use it, but am more afraid of killing another human being, more afraid of trying to live with the guilt of murdering another person. I bet my life that he will take my money and leave. I hope I win.

8. What does "I hope I win" mean?

Now I enter a gasoline station near my house. A black man is already waiting in line. He jumps and turns around. Seeing me, he relaxes and says I scared him because of the way things have become in this neighborhood.

Sorry, I say and smile. I realize I'm not the only one who is frightened.