Guns

 Before anyone gets all 'huffy' about the subject, just settle down and read my thoughts first.

At age six my Dad bought me a 410 gauge single-shot, shotgun.  I was thrilled and scared to death at the same time.  But he took the time to show and tell me everything I needed to know to use it properly and safely.  

I can't count the times he told me "I" was responsible every time the gun fired, including when, where, and what it was aimed at when it fired.  He emphasized the "responsibility" point so much that I still remember it more than anything else seventy-five years later.

I never killed anything with my gun, but I did shoot myself a few years later.  Yes, I dropped my 22 caliber rifle in 1953 and it went off grazing my shoulder.  Another inch or two and I probably would have died from the shot before they could get me to the closest doctor due to the flood and romoteness of where we were.

That incident didn't set well with me.  Not only could I have been killed, but I could have killed someone else.  I think it was then that I lost interest in owning a gun.

But seven years later I was in basic training at Fort Leonard Wood Missouri being trained to kill people with my M-1 Rifle.  Every soldier in the Army, no matter what job they will eventually do, must first become a 'Basic Infantryman,"  And they MUST be able to do it because the enemy is trying hard to kill us as we are them.  That sort of made sense, but, "why did we have to be at war in the first place?," lingered heavily in my mind.  I was just a soldier, so I did what I was told/ordered to do.

My brief time in Vietnam never exposed me to danger, but I could hear the war going on in the hills north and west of DaNang Air Force Base.  I didn't worry about having to shoot someone because there were lots of armed soldiers there who would probably shoot before I even figured out what was going on.  But once again, I took a strong dislike to guns, no matter their purpose.  They just seemed unnecessary in today's world.  With the exception, of course, during the war.  But in peacetime???

I'm now 81 and have never desired to own a gun.  I'm not paranoid about being killed with a gun by some criminal or angry nut-case or even in a gun accident.  I just try my best to stay away from guns and those with guns.  They make me nervous.

I happened on this YouTube video of an interview between a responsible news person and a responsible gun owner.  They were not arguing the merits of gun ownership.  Quite the contrary, they support gun ownership.  But as they talked it dawned on me that too many Americans are purchasing guns for the wrong reasons - they are frightened.  And after listening to their discussion, I can understand why.  

I'll leave it up to you to form your own opinion as to what they are saying.  But for the first time in my life, I personally don't feel safe around my fellow citizens.  

Here's the link to the interview.

Guns In America