Will That Be One Shot or Two?

When I was growing up, firearms were commonplace.

Hunting was a routine activity.

The woods were close enough, out the back door, and after school afternoons could include a foray sometimes for groundhog, often for squirrel or rabbit and when the season was right, deer.

Squirrel or rabbit for supper (fried with black pepper gravy) is a favorite memory.

And, I used to love going along on a coon hunt.

A pitch black summer night with the stars overhead and the sounds of the hounds in the distance as they chased and treed their prey.

I was a kid then and I was treated like one.

I don’t think I was “supervised” I was just taught to know the rules and to follow them.

And the weapons, twenty-two’s mostly, were sensible and sensibly handled.

My role was to try to be quiet and stay out of the lead.

(I’ve never been able to be quiet.)

Fire Power

The news this week carried an unfortunate story of a nine-year-old Arizona child killing her “instructor” at the firing range with an Uzi.

Her parents recorded the incident for posterity.

To what end, any of it?

Is she training to fight in Syria for ISIS?

(Americans cringe at photos of young kids in the middle east firing weapons.)

What’s the “values lesson” imparted to a child in this situation?

From Tragedy to Farce

The Associated Press is carrying a story this morning with the essential news that the instructor died of a “single gunshot to the head.”

<Sigh of Relief>

Glad it wasn’t two.

They also report that, “an official cause of death was pending.”

Alrighty, then.

We need to return to a point where the presence and use of firearms is commonsense and proportional so nine-year-old children don’t become killers by accident or otherwise.