Glad to have a gun around

This past July 4 I decided to stay home and watch the fireworks from the panoramic view of my apartment window that overlooks Cabrillo Bay and the Long Beach Shipping Harbor.

The man in the apartment above me began throwing and breaking glass against his windows.

I heard the sounds of domestic violence once before in the last three weeks, and it sounded like the man was going to kill the person with him this time. I shouted for him to stop.

He began throwing a heavy object on the floor repeatedly  and the ceiling seemed to bend and material was falling. I thought the man was trying to dig his way through to my apartment from the sound of it.

When I called 911, there was a busy signal. I called the manager who went up to check out the disturbance. Then it became quiet, and a moment later he was at my door.

The manager told me that the man destroyed the apartment upstairs, but that no one had been hurt and said something will have to be done. I smelled alcohol on him as he left, and didn't feel much safer from a moment ago when I was sure that I would witness a body being thrown out of the window above.

I had a sickening feeling when I picked it up and realized the danger involved,  never using or holding any gun in my life. With a crowd blocking the streets below and 911 still busy, the police would not be of much help if the violence resumed upstairs.

With the evening's events of aggression and intimidation by my neighbor playing over and over in my mind, I felt a mixture of shock, fear and resentment. I resented not being able to resume studying because I was so frightened, and resented feeling forced to use this gun in some measure for protection without hurting myself or anyone else.

I had been firmly set against guns up until this point. But as I held the gun, which seemed hideous to me at first,  my feelings changed in a way that I would have never imagined. I began to experience a feeling of respect and amazement.

On this Independence Day, I felt a keen sense of liberation and a personal sense of what the Second Amendment means to me.

This column was written by a CSULB student, whose name is withheld to prevent identification.