PILMAN
Member
Before I start off, I'm not an anti however at one point I had a large fear for guns. Not sure if this is the right place to post but maybe people that have had similar experience can relate and understand why some anti's may be the way they are.
Before anyone goes around saying "your dad was an idiot" he was bipolar (past stage II) and evaluated by hospital, also psychotic (we didn't know this until later) and ended up killing himself in 2003.
I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago in Cook County and my dad became a large gun collector in the early 90's. Not sure why, but from what my mother tells me he wanted them for home protection so she trusted him and I guess he was pretty safe with them, I believe he reloaded his own ammo (had some machine in the basement). First time I shot a gun I was maybe 8 years old? I think it was a shotgun however I don't think my father was very safe seeing as he shot his guns in the basement. He was a member of the NRA and I guess he brought his guns to work a few times to show some friends which angered my mother. My mother had some firearms license, my dad did too and she shot occasionally though not often.
We went to a gunshop and he bought me some rifle when I was about 10 maybe? At the time I was excited but when he pulled it out I was scared, not sure why as I had fired the shotgun. Maybe it had that "look" to it. It had a scope, my guess is it was an airgun. I always had a fear of the noise the guns made. He ended up selling it.
I know he went target shooting anytime we went up to my grandmas with my cousins, always brought his guns with. Well he seemed alright with firearms until about 1995, i'd say this is what started my fear. He was cleaning his gun in the living room, took out the magazine and I saw him pull the slide back on the gun, i'm not sure what he was cleaning but I believe it was his desert eagle as it was a very long handgun, it's too long for me to remember. Anyways he started to clean it and I was sitting there watching tv and it was late and the gun went off and shot a hole in the ceiling. My ears were ringing and I couldn't hear anything. My mother screamed at my father for hours and he kept appologizing, he tried explaining to me it was a blank and not a live round and I being what 10 years old at the time knew that was bull**** because there was a hole in the ceiling.
He made a mistake, we forgave him. That wasn't the end of it, in 1996 my dad had some severe mental issues that started to show once his mother passed away and he was prescribed prozac and some other drugs as he was diagnosed bipolar. My mother expressed concern to his psychologist who said not to worry as it was a great stress reliever. In 1996 he was in a talk group to talk about people who suffered child hood abuse and I guess my dad said something which people worried that he was a pedofile or something (and by all means he was not!). This caused him to become upset and threatened to kill the people that had called the police. This prompted even more problems, I didn't even know about this as I was returning from school and we were about to walk into the house and some cops came up to our house on bicycles. They started talking to my mother and I walked in the house, my dad was standing on the stairwell of the basement with a rifle in his hand and a handgun in his waisteband. I said "Dad what are you doing?" and he said "don't worry i'm just cleaning it" so I went running out screaming he had a gun because I thought he was going to kill us. He was standing around the corner like he was planning to shoot someone, a lot of people told me I was an idiot for doing so that i've talked to about this but at the time I felt it was right and I was very young.
The police bust into the house and I heard a lot of yelling and more cops came (maybe about a dozen or so), an ambulance came and I thought he was dead. The whole neighborhood was standing outside the house and I just wanted them to leave. Our neighbors took us to their grandparents to get us away from the mess and my father was released a year later from what I guess was prison though I was told he was in a mental hospital at that point. Heres the news article regarding it.
I also have police records of the guns they had seized at that point which were in safekeeping at the time. He was supposed to be able to get them back had he plead guilty in court. I've censored out the serial numbers although the guns are destroyed (from what the police department said)
When he got out he seemed tired and didn't really care about guns anymore. He kept a really low profile about it but a few years later I'd say 1999-2000 I asked him if he still had guns and he said he had a few left hidden in the basement that the police hadn't found. I don't know if he had more than 1 of the same gun but I remember when they confiscated all his guns, it looked like a lot. I don't know if it was another desert eagle he owned as the thing was very heavy though it was black (the one seized was silver). It felt intimidating that's for sure.
Over the years his mental condition got worse and he was no longer the same person, everytime you talked to him he would become someone else, he would become the person that would say "hey son lets play some baseball" to "**** you all, i'm going to kill you" and it was very scary. I would try to sleep at night and hear him yelling at my mother the whole night, sleepless and she wouuld be crying. I was worried he was going to kill us and would constantly make sure he wasn't in the basement. Everytime he walked towards the basement I had a feeling he was going to kill us. On mothers day he had threatened to bash my mothers brains in with a baseball bat and his eyes were bloodred and he had a beard, just looked nuts.
I'd say the last experience we had with him was 2002 and he normally snapped out of this "alternate personality" but in 2002 he didn't, he kept sleeping in his bed staring at the ceiling overdosing on pills and went from a crazy angry person to someone who had no will to live. At this point he might as well have been dead. He lost all interest of everything including eating. He used to visit this friend he met online her name was Dorthy in Chicago and she was bipolar as well. I guess he had tried to kill himself, 2 times I experienced it. The first time he tried to breathe fumes from a lawnmower then the other time he was smashing his head into a metal pole in the basement and I had found him passed out, both times the police had asked me if there was something going on and my dad had told me not to trust the police as they were out to get us. I was stupid and should have told them there was, they noted the gasoline in our basement and said it was dangerous and looked around in the basement asking if we had any guns, I said no.
Last time we saw him he had left angry to Dorthys house to visit her in the basement, we got a call from the cops saying they had arrested him and he had a handgun with him, he tossed it into some shrubs when he ran from them. Dorthy told us he was planning to shoot children and cops so he could be killed and his family could live rich with his life insurance since we were poor. Well we just about had it and we moved to Florida by my aunt while he was in a mental hospital.
We never discussed the topic of guns again. In 2003 on my way home from school my mother told me my father tried to drive down here and they found him dead in his car in a parking lot in Alabama. We don't know if he came down here to try to kill us or not but it looked like he had planned to move here as he brought everything with him.
By 2005 I was becoming interested in guns, i'm not sure why. I guess I started feeling the need to protect myself and I called the police department asking about my fathers guns, they told me they were destroyed a few years ago because my dad had violated parole or something. I was kind of dissapointed, I had selfishly tried to get my mother to allow me to get a gun and she was very very paranoid and kept saying "no way in hell". She explained some things I didn't know what my dad did with the guns which I don't want to talk about. I showed her this website and "a-human-right.com" and it took a lot of babysteps to get her used to guns. Her boyfriend owned a small revolver but she seemed ok with it as long as long as she didn't have to see it. I got interested in airsoft over the years and she was still afraid of anything that resembled an "assault rifle" however didn't seem too afraid of handguns. My friends in the military took me shooting and taught me some basic safety and how to clean a handgun and I enjoyed it.
At this point i'm decideing on my first gun. I turned 21 recently and I do live at home as my mother has no problem with it (she really isn't home much anyways so I really have the place to myself). She has finally agreed to let me get one or the other, a handgun or a rifle and she's almost convinced on letting me get both though I should really be lucky at this point that she is even considering it as most people who have had a bad experience with guns are mindset, many who were never even affected by them. I do not believe in gun control of any kind and I know what my father did was his own doing and not the gun. I'm sorry if the storys long or boring but I felt maybe it could explain a bit from the other side seeing as I used to be afraid of guns as well. Thanks for anyone who took the time to read my post.
Before anyone goes around saying "your dad was an idiot" he was bipolar (past stage II) and evaluated by hospital, also psychotic (we didn't know this until later) and ended up killing himself in 2003.
I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago in Cook County and my dad became a large gun collector in the early 90's. Not sure why, but from what my mother tells me he wanted them for home protection so she trusted him and I guess he was pretty safe with them, I believe he reloaded his own ammo (had some machine in the basement). First time I shot a gun I was maybe 8 years old? I think it was a shotgun however I don't think my father was very safe seeing as he shot his guns in the basement. He was a member of the NRA and I guess he brought his guns to work a few times to show some friends which angered my mother. My mother had some firearms license, my dad did too and she shot occasionally though not often.
We went to a gunshop and he bought me some rifle when I was about 10 maybe? At the time I was excited but when he pulled it out I was scared, not sure why as I had fired the shotgun. Maybe it had that "look" to it. It had a scope, my guess is it was an airgun. I always had a fear of the noise the guns made. He ended up selling it.
I know he went target shooting anytime we went up to my grandmas with my cousins, always brought his guns with. Well he seemed alright with firearms until about 1995, i'd say this is what started my fear. He was cleaning his gun in the living room, took out the magazine and I saw him pull the slide back on the gun, i'm not sure what he was cleaning but I believe it was his desert eagle as it was a very long handgun, it's too long for me to remember. Anyways he started to clean it and I was sitting there watching tv and it was late and the gun went off and shot a hole in the ceiling. My ears were ringing and I couldn't hear anything. My mother screamed at my father for hours and he kept appologizing, he tried explaining to me it was a blank and not a live round and I being what 10 years old at the time knew that was bull**** because there was a hole in the ceiling.
He made a mistake, we forgave him. That wasn't the end of it, in 1996 my dad had some severe mental issues that started to show once his mother passed away and he was prescribed prozac and some other drugs as he was diagnosed bipolar. My mother expressed concern to his psychologist who said not to worry as it was a great stress reliever. In 1996 he was in a talk group to talk about people who suffered child hood abuse and I guess my dad said something which people worried that he was a pedofile or something (and by all means he was not!). This caused him to become upset and threatened to kill the people that had called the police. This prompted even more problems, I didn't even know about this as I was returning from school and we were about to walk into the house and some cops came up to our house on bicycles. They started talking to my mother and I walked in the house, my dad was standing on the stairwell of the basement with a rifle in his hand and a handgun in his waisteband. I said "Dad what are you doing?" and he said "don't worry i'm just cleaning it" so I went running out screaming he had a gun because I thought he was going to kill us. He was standing around the corner like he was planning to shoot someone, a lot of people told me I was an idiot for doing so that i've talked to about this but at the time I felt it was right and I was very young.
The police bust into the house and I heard a lot of yelling and more cops came (maybe about a dozen or so), an ambulance came and I thought he was dead. The whole neighborhood was standing outside the house and I just wanted them to leave. Our neighbors took us to their grandparents to get us away from the mess and my father was released a year later from what I guess was prison though I was told he was in a mental hospital at that point. Heres the news article regarding it.
I also have police records of the guns they had seized at that point which were in safekeeping at the time. He was supposed to be able to get them back had he plead guilty in court. I've censored out the serial numbers although the guns are destroyed (from what the police department said)
When he got out he seemed tired and didn't really care about guns anymore. He kept a really low profile about it but a few years later I'd say 1999-2000 I asked him if he still had guns and he said he had a few left hidden in the basement that the police hadn't found. I don't know if he had more than 1 of the same gun but I remember when they confiscated all his guns, it looked like a lot. I don't know if it was another desert eagle he owned as the thing was very heavy though it was black (the one seized was silver). It felt intimidating that's for sure.
Over the years his mental condition got worse and he was no longer the same person, everytime you talked to him he would become someone else, he would become the person that would say "hey son lets play some baseball" to "**** you all, i'm going to kill you" and it was very scary. I would try to sleep at night and hear him yelling at my mother the whole night, sleepless and she wouuld be crying. I was worried he was going to kill us and would constantly make sure he wasn't in the basement. Everytime he walked towards the basement I had a feeling he was going to kill us. On mothers day he had threatened to bash my mothers brains in with a baseball bat and his eyes were bloodred and he had a beard, just looked nuts.
I'd say the last experience we had with him was 2002 and he normally snapped out of this "alternate personality" but in 2002 he didn't, he kept sleeping in his bed staring at the ceiling overdosing on pills and went from a crazy angry person to someone who had no will to live. At this point he might as well have been dead. He lost all interest of everything including eating. He used to visit this friend he met online her name was Dorthy in Chicago and she was bipolar as well. I guess he had tried to kill himself, 2 times I experienced it. The first time he tried to breathe fumes from a lawnmower then the other time he was smashing his head into a metal pole in the basement and I had found him passed out, both times the police had asked me if there was something going on and my dad had told me not to trust the police as they were out to get us. I was stupid and should have told them there was, they noted the gasoline in our basement and said it was dangerous and looked around in the basement asking if we had any guns, I said no.
Last time we saw him he had left angry to Dorthys house to visit her in the basement, we got a call from the cops saying they had arrested him and he had a handgun with him, he tossed it into some shrubs when he ran from them. Dorthy told us he was planning to shoot children and cops so he could be killed and his family could live rich with his life insurance since we were poor. Well we just about had it and we moved to Florida by my aunt while he was in a mental hospital.
We never discussed the topic of guns again. In 2003 on my way home from school my mother told me my father tried to drive down here and they found him dead in his car in a parking lot in Alabama. We don't know if he came down here to try to kill us or not but it looked like he had planned to move here as he brought everything with him.
By 2005 I was becoming interested in guns, i'm not sure why. I guess I started feeling the need to protect myself and I called the police department asking about my fathers guns, they told me they were destroyed a few years ago because my dad had violated parole or something. I was kind of dissapointed, I had selfishly tried to get my mother to allow me to get a gun and she was very very paranoid and kept saying "no way in hell". She explained some things I didn't know what my dad did with the guns which I don't want to talk about. I showed her this website and "a-human-right.com" and it took a lot of babysteps to get her used to guns. Her boyfriend owned a small revolver but she seemed ok with it as long as long as she didn't have to see it. I got interested in airsoft over the years and she was still afraid of anything that resembled an "assault rifle" however didn't seem too afraid of handguns. My friends in the military took me shooting and taught me some basic safety and how to clean a handgun and I enjoyed it.
At this point i'm decideing on my first gun. I turned 21 recently and I do live at home as my mother has no problem with it (she really isn't home much anyways so I really have the place to myself). She has finally agreed to let me get one or the other, a handgun or a rifle and she's almost convinced on letting me get both though I should really be lucky at this point that she is even considering it as most people who have had a bad experience with guns are mindset, many who were never even affected by them. I do not believe in gun control of any kind and I know what my father did was his own doing and not the gun. I'm sorry if the storys long or boring but I felt maybe it could explain a bit from the other side seeing as I used to be afraid of guns as well. Thanks for anyone who took the time to read my post.
