Guns Safety and Learning the lessons well.
I don't know which forum to place this in......Gun control in another thread prompted me to share this.
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This IS a true story. My story.
I could have killed him that night! If I’d have pulled that trigger, no one else, and nothing else would have been responsible for his death. This memory, this story, is engraved in my mind forever like it was written on a granite grave marker.
I have had a gun since I was 8. A BB gun at first. I learned the important rules, starting with; never point at something you don’t intend to shoot!
I learned this lesson well and at 12 I got my first ‘real’ gun. A single shot bolt action .22 rifle. Now I learned the next lesson that would save two lives that night; always assume the gun IS loaded!
When I was 14 I paid for my own .30-.30 for deer hunting. I was safe and knew the rules of handling a gun.
At 16 I bought my first handgun, from and individual, not a dealer. It was a cheap used .32 caliber revolver, not what we called a Saturday night special back then, but cheap. I still have it today.
I always kept it unloaded in my room. It was in plain site with the bullets lying nearby.
I was pretty exited about this pistol and had to show it off.
One night my brother and I jumped in my car (which I had also bought) and headed for an adult friends’ house. He was an assistant scout master in the Boy Scout troop I had been in and became a lifelong friend.
On the way my brother wanted a coke so we stopped at a nearby convenience store.
I waited in the car. While he was in the store, I started thinking how funny it would be to point the gun at his head and pull the trigger when he got back in the car. A stupid thought I know. Something made me very uneasy about it too. I think it was the constant lessons of ‘Never point at anything you don’t intend to ‘shoot and kill’ and ‘the gun is ALWAYS loaded’! Of course this pistol wasn’t loaded. As I said, I kept it unloaded. So I knew.
When we arrived at our friends’ home I handed him the gun to look at. The first thing he said was ‘do you always keep it loaded’ I said NO it’s not loaded’ he said ‘yes it is’ and showed me!
Standing there looking at a loaded gun my knees went weak, minutes ago I had been thinking of being funny with my brother, if I had been, he may very well have been dead!
What happened here? Two things….
My Dad drank a lot. Years before he got so bad he taught me about gun safety.
I think he loaded my gun when drunk and I wasn’t around just to as a test me.
Drunks do dumb shit.
The good news is I passed the final exam!
I listened well and took the rules seriously. And maybe a little luck was on my side that night too.
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Originally Posted by Pale Rider
