What it was like to grow up with a gun nut as a father-reposted for a reason [View all]

Last edited Wed Jan 9, 2013, 04:02 PM - Edit history (1)

I am re-posting this for a reason.

I have been reading for weeks now a lot of troubling talk about guns and statistics and gun rights. I am not sure if people understood why I posted this the first time but it wasn't to get sympathy, although I appreciated everyones kindness and words of support. The purpose of my posting this was to show that behind the facade of the "responsible gun owner" can be something all together different. There are a lot of survivors of abuse by gun nuts. Many people said that my father would have used a knife or something else if he didn't have guns, but that is just the point. He chose guns, he loves guns, guns give him power that nothing else gives him and that is intoxicating. You can hold a 16 year old girl by the back of the head by her hair and put a gun to her head just imagine the power of life and death you have. My father loves to be the hero to other people, I was in marching band in high school, and there were kids that didn't have parents come to the competitions or got sick or something and didn't have a parent there, well my father was there to be parent to everyone. Everyone told me what a great dad I had and I would see him comforting these teenage girls who were crying or whatever and he just loved being the hero but at home he was all together different and especially when he had his guns out.

So please, I hope other people see this and really look at it and don't say that he would have used other things to intimidate or abuse because he didn't. He didn't use a knife, he never beat me, he CHOSE to use a gun because that was what he was about.


My father has always been a gun nut.

I don't know how many guns he has now but I guarantee its enough to arm a small country and he has some pretty serious big weapons. I don't know what they are but they are big. I think he has an AK 47 among other assault rifles.

My father has guns of all sizes, he never leaves the house without one. He has a holster and a gun that will fit just about anywhere and he just needs them, he used to talk about "protection" he had his "going to Lowell" gun and his "going to Boston" gun but when he went to my wedding, my mother's funeral and my nephews baptism carrying a gun the reasoning wore thin.

When I was growing up it wasn't easy.

When I was a teenager, I actually never did anything or went anywhere but my parents always said I was "bad"

one day, after I refused to break up with a boyfriend they didn't like, I found myself being dragged in to the kitchen by my hair. My father was there and I suddenly had a gun in my face. I was told that if I didn't break up with the boy he would disappear.

There was another time when I was 16 that he kicked in the door of my room and unloaded an entire gun full of blanks at me, and he thought it was the funniest thing in the world. I ended up with PTSD.

I wanted to run away and thought about it and even planned it out a couple of times but I didn't want anything to happen to the people I would run to so that was what stopped me. Any time I got too close to someone or if it seemed I was going to run I would be told that people could always be "taken care" of.

Roughly 6 years after I got married my mother died at the age of 51 of lung cancer.

Then my father started to drink too.

I have two brothers who lived with him at the time, one still does.

He would get drunk and shoot bullets in to the floor and leave the casings around and think it was funny for my brothers to see it.

He would call me drunk and tell me he was "playing with his guns" to the point that when the phone would ring I would turn white start shaking and practically throw up.

Now you may be wondering why I didn't call the police on him. Well that's just the problem. He was a cop at the time, so there would be no way that would work out well.

We finally moved away, and my father remarried. I keep my kids away from him because he still drinks and plays with his guns but he tells everyone I am a real bitch to keep his granddaughters away from him.

My childhood was abusive in different ways but I think the gun thing was almost the worst. I have tried to talk to him about it and he alway says 'parents make mistakes' he has never acknowledged the damage he did and says I never could take a joke.

Now if you ask the other cops and a lot of people on the outside they would all say he is a "responsible gun owner" he locks them up and stores them correctly but he was not behaving in a responsible manner as far as I am concerned. But there it is.

A while ago I sent a friend an e-mail about how important it is for a girl to have a good father. I don't know if he knew all of this, but having a bad father is just about the worst thing in the world.

He is very ill now and I won't have him completely out of my life until he is gone. Fortunately I have an amazing husband, father in law and children not to mention friends who include Mr. Will Pitt who have helped me stay a loving person and not descend in to bitterness and anger but believe in love and be sure my children are raised knowing nothing but love and safety and how a woman should be treated.