Dad horrified there’s a gun in house

This week, I discovered that my intelligent, hard-working, responsible 24year-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.

Amy, this is the kind of weapon a criminal would possess! She says it is for emergencies. There have only been two home invasions in our neighborhood in the last 11 years.

I’ve given her three choices: Either give her weapon to me, sell it or move out in three weeks.

I love my daughter and would be so sad for her to move to a place she could hardly afford, but I have to lock my bedroom door at night because I don’t know what she’s going to do.

She says I don’t trust her, and is barely speaking to me.

How can I convince her to stop endangering us?

— Dumbfounded Father

According to my research, possessing hollow point bullets is illegal in 11 states; is it legal in your state to own this sort of exploding ammunition?

In a 2015 report, the University of Chicago found that 31% of households reported having a firearm in 2014, down from about 48% in 1980.

According to this study, there are more guns but concentrated in fewer households. Why must yours be one of them?

Where did your daughter get this weapon and ammunition? Has she received any safety training or certification? (Accidental gun death is a substantial risk of owning a gun.) Is she engaged in an activity that exposes her to increased risks and makes her believe she needs to have a weapon?

I have news for you: A locked bedroom door is no match for this weaponry; recently, a father in South Carolina shot and killed his own 23-year-old daughter through a closed door — when he mistook her for an intruder.

I agree with your ultimatum; and weep that there is another (likely unsafe) gun owner in this country.

My older brother committed suicide about two years ago.

He was not married and did not have children. He struggled with alcohol addiction for most of his adult life. We were unsuccessful in helping him to kick his addiction.

I still see my brother’s profile whenever I use Facebook, and it is incredibly painful for me. I get notifications and reminders, see his photos and wall posts, and get reminded to wish him a happy birthday or to contact him.

I want to have his profile gone forever, but my younger sister wants to “memorialize” his page, so we can still see it.

I don’t want to see it as it’s a painful reminder of our failure to help him, and that he’s no longer here.

Any recommendations?

— Grieving Sibling

I vote for memorializing your brother’s page. Instructions on how to do this are available through the Facebook “Help” section (search “deceased”). The process is somewhat involved and requires proof of death, and a request to Facebook.

A “memorial” page will be a way for your brother’s friends and family members (including you, if you ever chose) to remember him, view photos and continue to feel connected, but you would not receive birthday reminders or recommendations regarding his page. These are very difficult and painful points of contact for you, and anyone can understand why you would be upset by these reminders.

Being a survivor of a family member’s death by suicide conveys a unique and terrible sort of grief. But, please, I hope you won’t let your brother’s death (and your painful associations and memories of his struggles) erase his presence from your life.

I loved your answer to “Disgusted,” who did not want to attend his great-nephew’s bar mitzvah.

While his strong feelings are very meaningful to him, his desire to control his family’s thinking and behavior around this has a fundamentalist feel to it (i.e., We must get on the same page and not have divergent thinking). I hope he can reflect on that.

— Seattle Deb

I appreciate your sentiment, but disagree, to some extent. Divergent thinking is good, as long as we lead from a place of respect.

Copyright 2019 by Amy Dickinson