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| Janna Zepp, San Angelo, TX, 1968/69, age 3. |
This is me back when my folks and I lived in San Angelo. I have some vague, but genuinely happy memories about that time. I also remember this being the genesis of my familiarization of guns and gun safety.
My father was my first firearms instructor. When I'd play with these toy pistols, he'd correct my stance, how I held them, and how I carried them when I wasn't shooting. He told me only to shoot if I intended to kill, and only to kill in self-defense when other options were not available to me.
I was six years old when Dad taught me to fire my first real weapon. It was a Daisy air rifle. We shot at cans in the backyard of my Gammy's farmhouse in Peniel before the City of Greenville incorporated the area. I was never permitted to handle that gun--or any of his weapons--without his supervision and instruction.
At age 12, he gave me a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun (no compass in the stock) for Christmas. I was re-instructed on gun safety and allowed to shoot on my own. I took out venmous snakes on our own slice of suburban farm land in Tyler, since we had a stock pond on the property and a fountain in the backyard that had goldfish in it. The snakes terrorized the fish and were an obvious hazard, so I dispensed with them when seen, after apologizing for what I was about to do. For the record, I learned to identify snakes early so that I only removed the ones that would hurt us and our dogs.
At 19, before I headed off to Austin College after my gap year in Germany, Dad gave me a .22 pistol. He showed me how to load and unload it, how to store it, and where to keep it in my car. He explained how to use it in an attack. He told me what to do afterward should I ever need to use it. And then he told me how to avoid ever having to use it.
I never had to use it.
It was the last gun he gave me.
After he passed in 2006 and after I married Frank, my mother gave me Dad's long guns. My husband is their caretaker and he's lovingly kept them well preserved.
Frank is my firearms instructor now. He teaches just like my father did. I enjoy going shooting with him.
We support the 2nd Amendment, but not in the way you might think for a Native Texan and her military veteran. We're old school. Weapons are tools, not status symbols or social trophies in the way neo-Texans and AmeriNazis want to make them.
Frank and I do not open carry. We don't advertise what we own on social media. We don't holler and whine about proposed gun control or gun safety laws on Facebook. We don't talk about our weapons except with trusted friends or at the shooting range. Frank's secure in his masculinity and I'm not a vapid little "I'm not like other girls! OOPs! Gotta go get my hair, nails, tan, etc. done!" woman who just follows her husband's politics because "he's the boss!"
He's a moderate Republican of the John McCain variety; I'm just disgusted and suspicious of anyone holding a public office. I'm not liberal; I'm just a decent human being. More people oughta try that when they go vote.
By the way, we both wear the pants in this house. Ours is a relationship of mutual respect. I don't boss him around; he doesn't keep me under his thumb. If that bothers you, consider Viagra and a Christian Ethics class, and leave us TH alone.
Guns are tools. They are, indeed, highly dangerous in the hands of the arrogant, criminal and/or stupid. They're not substitutes for your lack of money, a penis or personal beauty. They belong only in the hands of those with good common sense and firearms safety education.
You're right, it is a dangerous world out there. I pack because of that fact. I've had death threats made toward me and mine before. I'm not about to allow our government try to take them from us. But I don't like the National Rifle Association. I don't trust them anymore than I trust the U.S. Government, even if I worked for the Department of Defense with a secret security clearance back in the day. I know the government and I know the kind of people in charge. I'm not sure a lot of them are really someone I'd trust with firepower, yet here we are.
My point is this: I'm not sure when Texas became chock full o'2A AmeriNazis waving their guns around and wearing them out in public like designer handbags, but I think that influx started about 40 some-odd years ago when the Californians began moving here with a bunch of Yankees and Midwest refugees. A desire to out-Texan each other was born then and the abject proud ignorance exploded from there.
Look, if you want to be a real Texan, that's great. But real Texans were never TEXAN!s, shouting it to everybody while waving guns around at Wally World. Not ever.
You wanna be a REAL Texan? Be the man my father was. Dad was PRO-science. He was PRO-education. In fact, he held a Ed.D rather than a Ph.D. That's a Doctor of Education degree and it is harder to earn than a Ph.D. He believed in critical thinking skills, which means you learned HOW to think, not WHAT to think from your education experience. He had conservative values, but they stopped at curtailing personal choices in reproductive freedom and the freedom to run your business in a way that includes the safety of your employees. He was PRO-farmer and ANTI-big business/big government. He was PRO-middle class and PRO-equal rights. His voting style was that of "The unplanned happens so you oughta be able to plan for the unplanned without the government getting in the way or putting you in prison for it." He believed in the equality of women and people of color because he grew up hoeing cotton and corn on his father's farm right along side them.
Dad was a REAL Texan, not a bad copy of a wannabe like the people responsible for our current unsavory, international stereotype.
You want to be a REAL Texan? Put your gun back in the safe, put on your mask or get vaccinated, stop telling Texas women what to do with their bodies, trust science, check your news sources before blindly believing them, vote against ridiculous amounts of gun control and for requiring gun safety certification courses or proof of having passed them before purchasing a weapon, STOP turning politicians into rock stars and demi-gods, and just quit being loud-mouthed idiots in general.
Don't be an AmeriNazi. Ever. And if you are, stop calling yourself a "real" Texan. Because, honey, you're NOT.
P.S. I believe in closed borders and legal work status only. But I believe in legal immigration and treating people like human beings instead of animals. Keep the families together and stop caging people like animals. I also think DACA is a good thing. Unfollow me. I dare you.
