This Conversation Influenced Me To Protect Myself

Alesha Peterson

4 min readMar 1, 2020

Photo by Mother Jones.

Ongoing journey of gun ownership continues.

I’ve befriended and had many conversations with security guards.

This could be on film set, volunteering, food courts and everywhere in between.

I started this conversation with the lady that guards cars in the Children’s Museum.

I asked her how do you feel about owning a gun for your own protection?

To my surprise, she said she has one. She said I would get one as soon as possible.

I told her about the mentally ill black guy threatening my life, and I want to find a way to protect me and my dog in the future. (My dog is a little cute shihtzu).

I told her about my background: I like to be left alone 3/4 of the time, people particularly weird guys like to sit next to me on the Subway in NYC. Kids were targeting me in my grade school because they were jealous. Regardless if I admit to this or not, I attract unwanted attention, and I HATE IT. It’s been the story my whole life.

She said since that’s been my story, she definitely recommends me getting a gun permit sooner rather than later. As black women, she says you really got to protect yourself.

I told her about how the police responded when dealing with the mentally ill guy. They did nothing. They were passive.

As much as I like police officers, I lost a little respect for this squad. I would never want to be a police officer. I have friends and a family member that’s a police officer. (Those are the only police officers I’m buying donuts for….)

If I was in a rich neighborhood or around my film sets, it’s a different ball game. When you have money, people change.

She said yep!

Since we agreed that it’s better to self-protect yourself instead of depending on law enforcement, she said sign the dotted line and let me know how it goes.

I asked her how long did it take for her to get comfortable with a gun? As a girl that when to private schools for most of my life, and would fail a gangsta contest, I never held a gun.

I asked her how did she get good at handling a gun?

She told me she went to the gun range and practiced. She taught her daughter how to use a gun, and she’s around my age.

Another thought just came up.

Here lately, I’ve been really considering going back into martial arts to re-learn my back flips and to upgrade my self-defense.

When I saw the guy do a back-flip in the air, it gave me Dragon Ball Z feels.

By the way, I wish I had Dragon Ball Z Super and Dragon Ball Z: Battle of the Gods before GT. Now I’m mixed up. Lol.

These photos are from a while ago.