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My name is Alexis Gonzalez, I am the second child of Mexican nationals that came to this country to pursue a better life. Being a first generation American, I was raised without having any firearms in my home. I don’t ever remember my mother and father stigmatizing firearms by making them seem evil while I was growing up. Only negative experience I can recall with a firearm was one time in Chicago at a small park where my mom and dad would take us often to play, a group of kids tried to take my brothers bike away. I remember sitting on the middle bar on the bike frame while my brother pedaled me around the park. On one of the turns, I remember me and my older brother being approached by a group of older kids. I don’t remember much but I do remember them telling my brother to give them his bike. Mind you, my older brother was around 10 or 11 years of age at this time which would make me 6 or 7 years old. When the “asked” for his bike I remember them flashing a gun on their waistband. I was too young to know what it was and to be honest I don’t know if my brother realized what it was either. Not too much time had passed until my mother had seen we were stopped by a group of kids and I don’t know if it was mothers instinct or what but she came running full speed towards ups yelling while clapping her hands in the air to make her presence known. By the grace of God, that was enough to spook the group of hoodlums away from my brother and I. 

Close to 20 years later I received my formal introduction to firearms when I was issued a M16A2 Service rifle during my first week of Marine Recruit Training in Marine Corps Recruit Depot (MCRD) San Diego at the age of 21. During recruit training we would march practically everywhere and during any down time we would be disassembling the rifle to clean it and reassembling back up, even though not a single round had been fired nor would be fired till the second month of training. We would recite the weapon safety rules repeatedly. 1. Treat Every Weapon as if it is loaded. 2. Never point a weapon at anything you do not intend to kill. 3. Keep your finger straight and off the trigger till you are ready to fire. 4. Keep you weapon on safe until you intend to fire. Till this day they are engrained in my memory. It was at this time that I learned that the weapon is only as good as the person that wields it. 

During this first three months at the Depot, I was also introduced to the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP) as well. The moto of the program is “One Mind, Any Weapon” in other words, “I” am the weapon. This Martial art really solidified the fact that the firearm is not the one that should be feared, but rather the person that is trained, willing, and capable of doing. It is this state of mind that gives power to the individual as opposed to an inanimate object which cannot think for itself. Nor does it have any feelings or a soul.

The firearm is a tool and only becomes a weapon in the hands of a person. And it is on each one of us that decide to carry one, for whatever reason, to be proficient in using it.