How an Anti-Gun Mother Inevitably Learned There's 'Nothing to Fear and A Lot to Gain From Owning a Gun

Tracy Scarpulla and her U.S. Marine husband had drastically different viewpoints when it came to gun ownership in their home earlier in their marriage.

Scarpulla, a traveling nurse from  Albany, New York, in a personal account published on CNN's iReport recalled how she was "a firm believer that guns were dangerous," fearing the "unknown and the danger guns seemed to possess."

Tracy Scarpulla and her three children. Scarpulla was against guns before, she wrote, because she didn't understand them. (Photo via CNN iReport)

Thinking she would be even more against owning guns in her home when she had children, the now mother of three writes of situations where her thoughts about firearms and protection began to change:

Slowly over the years, I became more and more fearful of being home alone on the nights he worked, especially after I had children. We were living in Maryland on a farm in the middle of nowhere. One night, I got a call from my husband telling me to lock all doors and windows as he had just spoken with a sheriff down the road who was looking for an escaped convict.

I was terrified.

Scarpulla wrote that they had a firearm at home, but she had no knowledge of how to use it. Now, after 10 years, she has not only accepted guns in her home, but she is well educated on their proper use, is telling other mothers about them and has changed her thinking about their supposed inherent danger she feared before.

"Over the 11 years of our marriage, I slowly learned about guns," she wrote. "I began to accept that the gun itself posed no danger -- any danger was in the hand and heart of the beholder. I learned there were safe ways to teach your children about guns. Guns were a tool like any tool; they have multiple purposes and uses. I learned more about our Constitution and our rights as U. S. citizens. I learned I had nothing to fear and a lot to gain from owning a gun."

Going on to address President Barack Obama and others advocating for more gun control, Scarpulla noted how she might not be "physically capable of stopping a 200-pound man from raping me or my daughters" or robbing her home, but her gun is.

"We live in a society where no one is there to protect us. The police come after the crime, not before. I do not have 24/7 armed protection like you do, Mr. President. Neither do my children."

Read Scarpulla's full story here.