Missed point
Gun rights, violence different issues Meleanie Hain’s story came to an abrupt and tragic end on the night of Wednesday, Oct. 7, when the 31-year-old mother of three was shot dead by her husband, 33-year-old Scott Hain, in their home in a quiet neighborhood in Lebanon. Mr. Hain then turned the gun on himself. The Hains’ three children were in the house when it happened.
Within minutes after the story about Lebanon’s latest murder-suicide was posted on our newspaper’s Web site that night, the online comments started to appear. Nearly all of them related at least tangentially to the Second Amendment. That’s predictable, we suppose, considering who the victim was.
Sadly, the comment-writers were largely missing the point. As a nation, we’re missing the point.
Mrs. Hain became the epicenter of a national gun-rights firestorm last year after she wore a loaded handgun, openly displayed in a holster on her hip, to her 5-year-old daughter’s soccer game. Other parents objected. Notable among them was the coach of one of the teams, Charlie Jones, who also happened to be the county’s chief public defender and was soon to become the Republican nominee for county judge. As the story unfolded, Mrs. Hain’s permit to carry a concealed weapon was revoked by the county sheriff (somewhat irrelevant, since she wasn’t concealing it in the first place) then restored by a county judge who overturned the sheriff’s action. Mrs. Hain subsequently filed civil actions against the county and the sheriff. Throughout, the case got national media attention.
Meleanie Hain was famous – or infamous, depending on your point of view – as the pistol-packing soccer mom. She was the poster girl for gun rights, and she appeared to revel in the role. But the thing about this tragedy is that it has virtually nothing to do with Mrs. Hain’s right to bear arms, or her concealed-weapons permit, or her wisdom or lack thereof in wearing a loaded Glock to a children’s soccer game.
It has everything to do with domestic violence.
Whether you loved or hated Meleanie Hain for her position on gun rights, you must recognize that she is yet one more victim of the national – and local – epidemic of violence in the home. That the weapon was a gun is perhaps ironic – we’ll grant that – but it could just as easily have been a knife like the one that killed 55-year-old Christine Hardenstine in her home in North Lebanon Township last month or the one that killed 51-year-old Larry Colletti in his home in neighboring Annville the month before that. Or it could have been an electrical cord like the one in June that strangled 71-year-old Jeanette Ebling in her Swatara Township home, a few miles north of Lebanon.
Every one of those tragic slayings was a domestic-violence case. In one case, a girlfriend was charged with the murder; in another, a boyfriend; in another, a son.
In Mrs. Hain’s case, there will be no charges because the killer, her husband, took his own life. He’s a victim, too – not to mention the children, 2, 6 and 10. They were not physically hurt, but who knows what psychological harm they suffered?
Americans love to argue about guns and gun rights. We’re not so keen on talking about domestic violence. Clearly, it’s a conversation we need to have.
Coincidentally, October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. It’s a good time to start talking.
Lebanon Daily News