NRA-ILA 6/14/2019
Amy Dickinson is an advice columnist who, according to the company that syndicates her work, “combines storytelling with advice that is rooted with honesty and trust.†“Ask Amy†appears in newspapers that include The Baltimore Sun, The Chicago Tribune, The Lost Angeles Times, and The Washington Post. She is also billed as an “expert on relationships.â€
Dickinson may be good at telling stories, but she is hardly honest, trustworthy, or expert in matters of firearms, which she nevertheless feels free to opine on, including in an article published this week that encourages an overwrought father to evict his adult daughter for owning a pistol.
A man identified only as “DUMBFOUNDED FATHER†(who we’ll refer to as “DUMB†for short) wrote Amy to breathlessly report:
This week I discovered that my intelligent, hard-working, responsible 24-year-old daughter (who lives with me) is a gun owner! And it’s not a normal gun either — it is a .40-caliber semi-automatic, and she has hollow point bullets to go with it.
DUMB believes the handgun to be “the kind of weapon a criminal would possess!†He dismisses his daughter’s choice to keep the gun “for emergencies,†arguing that there have been “only two†home invasions in their neighborhood during the last 11 years.
DUMB goes on to tell Amy that he has ordered his daughter to relinquish the gun or move out of his house in three weeks. He admits, “I love my daughter and would be so sad for her to move into a place that she would hardly be able to afford,†but insists, “I have to lock my bedroom door at night because I don’t know what she’s going to do.â€
DUMB complains that his daughter now says he doesn’t trust her and will barely speak to him, “How,†he asks Amy, “can I convince her to stop endangering us?â€
Needless to say, DUMB’s question embodies a number of false assumptions, as well as a remarkably condescending attitude toward women and firearms.
First, there is nothing “not … normal†about a .40 cal. semi-automatic handgun. Semi-automatic handguns are in fact the most popular category of firearm in America today.
The .40 caliber S&W cartridge, meanwhile, was developed specifically for law enforcement use, following the FBI’s determination in the mid-1980s to replace their standard-issue .38 special revolvers with semi-automatic pistols.
More:
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20190614/advice-columnist-tells-father-to-evict-daughter-from-his-house-for-owning-a-gun