December 19, 1999

Ms. Peggy Tartaro, Executive Editor
Women & Guns
267 Linwood Avenue
PO Box 488
Buffalo, NY 14209-0488

Reference:Firearms Suicide: Not a Reason for Gun Control

Dear Ms. Tartaro,

I am a fairly new supporter of numerous pro-2nd Amendment organizations. Every time I have read Women & Guns, I felt compelled to share my opinions with you about the above referenced issue. This weekend, I decided to do just that.

I am a mother who lost her only child, Kimberly, to a firearm?s suicide. We had no guns in the house and I knew nothing about them. It was four years later that I decided to address the firearms? controversy. One of my first challenges was to touch a gun and then work through the pain of its sound because that sound was the last noise my precious baby heard…not my soft voice telling her I loved her or how very proud of her that I was. She had a beautiful soprano voice, sang in two choirs, loved equestrian competition, taught and danced jazz…my, how she was so full of life, but depression consumed her.

Now, my heartfelt opinion…

I am appalled every time I hear anti-2nd Amendment Rights people and politicians exploit suicide victims for their personal ?power hungry? agenda. I am sure a good majority of this personality type feels very ?safe? in jumping on these departed one?s stats because they know their exploitations will go uncontested … cries from suicide victims cannot be heard.

Firearms suicide should be addressed no more, no less, than any other suicide completed by dangling from a rope or belt, cutting of one?s wrists, igniting one?s body in flames, overdosing, poisoning, asphyxiation, throwing oneself in front of a train, jumping off a tall building or crashing of one?s car.

Every person, such as I, who has lost a loved one to suicide should take offense against any person or party who exploits our beloved departed for their personal agenda or political platform. Kimberly, my 18-year-old daughter, is a suicide statistic. Who gives anyone the right to exploit my daughter?s method of suicide when her voice would speak
out loud and clear that because she has chosen a particular method that the majority of others should not be punished. My daughter does not want my ability to protect myself to be hindered in any way, shape or form. I know she wants me to protect myself with a firearm, carry where I feel I need to, store my guns in my home the way I need to and choose whatever firearms I want to shoot whether it be for self-defense, food, competition, or sporting. She understands that dependency on my firearm will grow stronger, especially as I become older and weaker with age.

Those who profess to be truly concerned about reducing suicide, no matter what the method, should be pursuing the common denominator … the reason. How one completes suicide is not the ?reason?. How, is merely a method. When one method is not available, then another method is.

What are the triggering factors? What are the driving forces sending someone into such a spiraling fate? The problem lies not within the method, but within the heart and mind of the troubled person. Who is pursuing these causes? Who is investigating autopsies that reveal a common denominator of many of them being on mind-altering drugs? How many of these mind-altering drugs were (and are) being prescribed? Who dares to go there? Who dares to seek the truth? Who is willing to cast aside exploitations and seek a political platform based upon integrity, honor and truth? Who is strong enough to become a true hero unto our troubled society?

Guns do not make our youth suicidal. What does? What can be done to reduce our youth?s suicidal behavior? Would eliminating or mandating closer regulations of the use of mind-altering drugs? Would protecting our youth from desensitizing activities? Would replacing study halls with communication skills, sensitivity, and anger management classes?

There was a time when I thought nothing could be worse than my child?s firearms? suicide until recently, when a mother told me how she is haunted by the excruciating way her child completed suicide and the pain that her son must have endured, until his death. She told me how she wished her child had access to a gun so the method he had chosen would not have been so agonizing for him and slow. Shocking… I never thought about this before. I cannot imagine the anguish that suicide survivor?s experience when they think of their precious child dangling and twitching from the end of a rope, or of them screaming in agony as their body is consumed in flames, or of them thrashing about during their asphyxiation, or of them growing weaker and trembling from bleeding their wrists, or doubling up in pain from ingesting poisons, or screaming while being dragged after throwing themselves in front of a train or car or from a tall building. I can only sit here with tears streaming down my face while ?trying?

to imagine my baby using one of the other methods. I cannot scratch these suicide survivor?s emotional surface and my heart has found a new ache for these dear ones who will be haunted by those other methods for the rest of their lives.

Do you wonder how I can be so descriptive about such a painful topic? When we first lose a loved one to suicide we are usually very weak and fragile. Our wounds are too raw. Over a period of time a good number of us recognize the importance of dealing with our loss and the reality of it (I?ve been in support groups for years). Usually, the most difficult word to articulate is the ?S? word (suicide). Usually that unwanted cup of rawness is filled with shock, disbelief, unbearable pain and very often anger. It is when losses are new and survivor?s are vulnerable, that those with an anti-gun agenda move in for kill #2 and prey upon and exploit the vulnerable, like myself, who are left behind with only memories and emotional scars. For years I was too weak to take any kind of anti/pro-gun stand. Then, being a single woman and concerned for my safety, my desire to understand both sides of the issue was greater than my sorrow. I forced myself to hold a gun, to learn about them, to understand more about individual rights in order to make a clear and conscientious decision about what was best for the ?majority? of ordinary American citizens like myself.

Suicide is not the answer to temporary or permanent problems. Losing a child, especially an only child, is unbearably painful. I will never be called mom again and I will never have grandchildren. My baby chose a firearm (instead of hanging or burning) for her suicide method. Just because she chose this method to end her life, I have no right to tell other people that their life is not as valuable as Kimberly?s and prevent them from protecting themselves and loved ones. My life and my freedom are just as valuable and just as precious as my baby?s life was. My journey has been excruciating, but it is imperative that I look at the whole picture and not punish and restrict the rights of others for what Kimberly did. And how dare any ?outsider? exploit my daughter?s suicide for their political agenda!

In spite of my daily pain … my continuous yearning for her… tidal waves of tears sweeping over me when I least expect it … I want to live. I love my life, and I believe in the Almighty God who placed me here and who gave up His only begotten Son so I can have an eternity with Him. He believes in me and in what I can accomplish and I must believe in myself, just as much. I may not be able to ?mother? my baby anymore, but I can mother, nurture and protect the American rights that you and I have. Neither of us should have to grieve any more twisted erosions of our individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms for our protection, the protection of our homes, loved ones and security of our individual freedoms.

Sincerely,

Brenda Flowers
Publicity Director, Pikes Peak Firearms Coalition
Mother of only child
Kimberly ~ Forever 18