Basic thoughts

[sroni]

My daddy started teaching me gun safety when I was little. He gave my brother and me four rules.

1. NEVER touch the gun without permission.
2. The gun is always loaded, unless you unloaded it yourself, and have never put it down since doing so.
3. The gun is always loaded, even if you DID unload it yourself.
4. NEVER point the gun at anything you’re not willing to see destroyed.

He started teaching my brother and me those rules at such a young age, that I can’t remember NOT knowing them. He tested my bro and me, too, by leaving the empty gun in the living room, to see how we handled it. One of us took the gun to my dad (we were about nine- and seven-ish), and told my dad that he’d left it out. The other of us came and got my dad, taking him to the gun. My brother and I both maintain that the OTHER one was the one who touched the gun, and my dad honestly can’t tell us which one did which.

The next time he tested us, my brother and I passed with flying colors.

He started teaching my brother and me how to shoot when I was about twelve, thirteenish, using a dart- and BB-gun. It had roughly the same heft of a gun, etc. It just shot darts (or BBs) instead of bullets. He set up targets using old TV guides, and we got to kill the people on the cover. (Which meant that we killed Bill Clinton a whole lot, and Sarah Michelle Gellar NEVER.)

I guess the point of this is, my brother and I have a healthy respect for guns. We know how to handle them, and when I work at it, I’m a pretty good shot. (But I have to work at it, and it takes me time to get back into practice.) I can’t imagine ever taking a gun to kill someone who wasn’t trying to kill me. Ever.

So my familiarity with guns doesn’t make me any more likely to go on a shooting spree than my being a nurses kid makes me likely to become a druggie. If anything, those aspects of my life KEEPS me from doing these things.

So will people please SHUT UP about how guns kill people, and if we didn’t have guns, people wouldn’t be killed? I have two things to say to that:

1. If guns kill people, then pens mispell words.
2. If you take away the guns, then the only people who will have the guns are the criminals. Who won’t shed a tear if they use it on an innocent who doesn’t have a gun to protect themselves because of an idiotic law. (A law that I’m hoping will never be passed, and if America has a brain, will never pass. But I might be asking for two much by assuming that America has a brain.)

Comments

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

America elected a man who said, in no uncertain terms, that he wanted to take our guns away. So no, America doesn't have a brain.

I gave both my daughters the same test: They came to me without touching the gun, FTW!

[sroni.livejournal.com]

*sighs over America's apparent idiocy*

Yay for your daughters! I honestly can't tell you which one of us didn't quite pass the test with flying colors the first time around. I swear that my bro did it, and I didn't touch the gun. He swears that it was me, and HE didn't touch the gun. And my dad says it doesn't really matter, the lesson was learned.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Your dad's a smart man -- as he said, lesson learned!