I am an angry survivor of domestic violence. In 1982, a family member battered my mother and threatened her life and mine with a handgun. For several minutes, this person aimed the gun directly at my face. Hopes of dialing 911 for immediate help or trying to escape were inconceivable because we were isolated in a rural home outside of city limits with acres between us and our neighbors.

While I sat there on the couch, staring at the gun and begging for my life, I felt certain that my mother and I would be escorted to a ditch in some remote location and left bleeding in the snow. My only thought was that I wanted to be with her at the end.

As in many situations like this one, the gun eventually was put away, and the crime was never reported. It is very common for victims of such abuse to hide the truth and make excuses for the perpetrator to others and even to themselves. So this hunter and collector of handguns and rifles has never been convicted of his crime, and he is free to own and use his guns right here in Iowa.

It happens in the nicest of homes. It’s the American way.

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution states, “A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” I really must chuckle when someone gets up on a soapbox and preaches about his constitutional right to bear arms. I just want to say: “Bully for you, militiaman! I’ll sleep so much better, knowing you have that little pistol to protect our country.”

According to a Supreme Court decision in1939, U.S. vs. Miller, the Second Amendment does not protect possession of a firearm unless it has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia. The Supreme Court has stated that the National Guard constitutes the militia of contemporary America.

The Supreme Court has never overturned a gun control law on Second Amendment grounds.

The same gun enthusiasts who love to declare gun control unconstitutional often express their need to own a firearm for protection. This was the rationale for having guns in my childhood home.

According to a study of 743 gunshot deaths conducted by Dr. Arthur Kellermann and Dr. Donald Reay, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, 398 of the deaths occurred in homes where handguns were kept. Relatives, family members, spouses and roommates most often shot the residents in 84% of the homicides, which occurred during altercations in their homes.

Of the 743 gunshot deaths, only two involved an intruder killed during an attempted entry. Police and courts determined that only nine of these homicides were justified. Behind automobile-related fatalities, gun violence is presently the second leading cause of injury-related death in America. Gun fatalities are projected to become the leading cause of injury-related death by the year 2003.

Quote the statistics to your average neighborhood gun enthusiast, and he’ll probably slap his knee and say: “By God, gun control is just plain un-American.” Unfortunately, he would be correct in saying that. Guns are currently out of control in America.

A study conducted by the United Nations indicates that America has higher numbers of fatalities related to guns than all other industrialized and developing nations. Children in America are 12 times more likely to die from gun injury than are children in other industrialized nations.

While I was teaching English and living in Asia, guns and crime sometimes became a topic of conversation in my classrooms. I explained to my students that I had learned to shoot a gun when I was growing up, and they suddenly scrutinized me with wide eyes of amazement. “Do you have a gun?” they sometimes asked. After I told them no, I still felt a little barbaric.

No, I don’t have a gun — and if YOU have a gun, I want you to stay away from me.

Recently, I heard a conversation between two opponents of firearm control about the current rash of gun violence perpetrated by children. They’re explanations for these problems were so focused on disintegrating family values and violence on television that they failed to even consider the availability of a firearm in the home as a contributing factor. It seems, that keeping a gun in the house is considered a kind of wholesome practice. Ownership of a firearm for protection is as sacred as Mom and apple pie. Saving lives just isn’t a good enough reason for giving up the beautiful freedom of owning a gun.

When I hear an opponent of gun control argue in favor of this beautiful freedom he wants to protect, I wonder if he would still think of it as a “beautiful freedom” with a handgun pointed directly at his face.

Tom Owings is a graduate student in English from Ames. He is the opinion editor of the Daily.