Tom Arnold's Gun Control Essay Presents a Passionate Argument

Tom Arnold's Gun Control Essay Presents a Passionate Argument | Hollywood Reporter:

 Because I've had personal demons, I worried about those who would come back as heroes to everyone but themselves, and now might find themselves alone, without their team, sitting in their basement with their drugs and their guns.

Tom, bless you for your concerns.  But I think that you might pay attention to the fact that since you are a "name", people will listen to your words.  Most of whom are not .. excuse the word .. suicidal.

That may be what you want ... not the suicides; the discretion.  But what happens is that a lot of perfectly sane people who own firearms might be tarred by the same brush.
(Sorry: feel remorse and consider suicide as a viable alternative to live.)

I know you're a big hollywood star, and I've seen both of your movies (one of them had AHNOLD in it, I can't recall the other movie right off-hand) and you were married to that revered woman celebrity ... the one with the mouth?  Yeah, that one.  Rosanne?  (Correct me if I'm wrong, sorry.)

Anyway, you might consider the effect your words have on the millions of people who are responsible gun owners.   Their experiences may not quite parallel yours:

My nephew Spencer was a sweet boy, but he was small, and I'm sure he was picked on. He was kicked out of the Army after attempting suicide. He was diagnosed as chronically depressed and unsafe around weapons. Yet he was able to get a concealed weapon permit from the state of Iowa and buy five guns. Like me, Spencer was a substance abuser. He refused my offer for help with that as well as his mental illness, so I was very concerned. Last fall, when I saw on Facebook that he had joined a crazy, racist, neo-Nazi (I'm Jewish, as is my mom) gun group and videotaped himself showing off, drunkenly shooting his assault rifle and calling President Obama the N-word, I headed to the airport to go see him.

Tom ... can I call you Tom?  I don't want to presume on you, but you're being quoted in the press as an expert on firearms, and I honestly regret your loss of a beloved nephew due to suicide.  I know that's hard to deal with; I've had friends and family who were also victims of firearms violence.

Well, actually, I'm thinking mostly about the 18 year old kid who was killed by a booby trap in VietNam, in 1969.  Not the same as suicide, I know, but the feeling of loss is almost comparable, except my kid died thinking he was fighting for his country, and your nephew (obviously closer, personally, to you than this kid in my platoon) was morbidly depressed because ... ah .. well, I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure he was experiencing some tough-to-handle things, unlike my happy-go-lucky friend in ... you  know ... the army?

So just because I was in the army, and 'over there', doesn't mean that I don't feel your pain.  It's hard to lose a loved one, especially someone who was such a close relative as a nephew.

Anyway, even though my friend wasn't a substance abuser, he DID have firearms.  (Not that it did him much good, but that's another story.  I carried his M16 and his web gear back to base camp, after his body was picked up by the helicopter.)   I don't think we can label him an "expert on firearms", although he did carry an AR16 for the rest of his life.  Which ended at age 19.

I don't think my friend called the president an "n-word", but that was a different decade and a different president; Nixon?   Is that an "N-word"?  Whatever, my friend gave his life for his country, not for his president.

Sorry; it's been a lot of years, and sometimes I get confused about just which president sent us to the beautiful, balmy country of South Vietnam.  It was ONE of those guys, probably a fucking Republican (and you know how THEY are).

Or was it Kennedy?  Or Johnson.   Never mind, I kind of zone out from time to time.

Where was I?
Oh yeah, now I remember.

Tom, I'm sorry your nephew blew his brains out.  I've seen it, it's not a pretty sight.

So please accept my most sincere  ... um ... condolences for your personal loss.  Nobody should have to suffer as you obviously have, at the loss of your son.

Oh, no ... sorry .. NEPHEW!   (Knuckling my head, why can't I get that straight?)

Sorry for your lose Tom.  Truly.  People think that Celebrities shouldn't be like real people and feel pain at the loss of a loved one.

There is no shame in suicide.  Happens to the best of people.

Well, you already know that.