Everyone Around Here Has a Gun...

I thought I lived in a decent neighborhood...our house is one of those 1970's built tri-level houses with an attached garage and a fenced in back yard.  All of our neighbors have nicely manicured lawns and there is never lawn furniture just chillin' in a side yard around here.  It's normal people, taking care of their normal houses and mowing their lawns, and saying hello when they walk by with their dog on a leash.

We live quite close to a main drag where all of the shopping and food places are, also on the main drag is a  large apartment complex where the city's finest hang live.  This apartment complex is the size of a small city and requires frequent visits from the local police and fire....thousands of people sucking up the taxpayers dollars (even though these tenants pay no taxes).

Over the past few weeks somebody has robbed (at gunpoint) the Jimmy Johns, Seven Eleven, Fifth Third Bank and the Cash Advance store.  People wielding guns within walking distance of my house, and my kids.  While I was grocery shopping last Saturday, Jon called to say the bank was being robbed and the suspects were fleeing with a gun.  He told me to get home quickly which made my walk to the car (in the dark) very nerve wracking.

I have been to this place before and I know how quickly fear can creep back into your mind and camp out for a little too long.  Last night Jon left for a medical call and last week I probably wouldn't have even heard him leave but now I'm wondering if he remembered to lock the front door, if somebody saw him leave and now knows that I'm alone...if he's headed into one of those apartments where thugs are beating the shit out of one another and now need to be bandaged up.

On my way home from school Monday night there were no other cars on the road except the one directly behind me, following a little too close and I started to wonder what if it was a car full of punks loaded up on drugs who had the perfect chance to run me off the road without anyone to witness it?  Why were they following me so close when the rest of the road was open for grabs?

What if a meth head breaks into our house in the night...what would we protect ourselves with?

Jon is trying to convince me that even if he moved me to the farm house out in the country, I will still have to deal with the bad things that happen in the world...I will take that into consideration.

In the meantime I am trying to talk myself out of buying a gun to keep in the house, although in this moment I feel like it would be the only thing to protect me if I should ever be pushed to keep an animal away from my children should he dare to cross my doorstep.