When I was 16, my brother was shot down in cold blood by an individual with a known history of violence. Someone who never should have had access to a gun.
When I was 18, I named my first son after my brother, my only full-blooded sibling. Little did I know that 22 years later, I would lose my own son to guns. He took his own life with guns that he never should have had access to because of his mental instability.
I come from a family of gun owners. Those who hunt and those who simply shoot. Since the murder of my brother, I have not liked guns and the deadliness they represent. Twenty-four years later, I can still see the bullet hole in my brother’s head that the funeral make-up couldn’t quite cover up. Today, the sight of a gun makes me nauseous.