Guns posted 10/30/2009 8:58:10 PM | 4 kudos what's this?     report abuse

sloriver

My Uncle Tracy always had a gun. Since he was my hero, and since he always shared everything with me, I got to shoot his guns when I was so little I could hardly hold them. This may seem reckless and dangerous, and it was. After all, Tracy was only five or six years older than me. An eight year old and a 13 year old running around with a 22 rifle, pinging tin cans and squirrels is a recipe for disaster or worse. The point is, I learned to use a gun safely by growing up in the country and being taught by someone who learned it from another safe, responsible gun user……..his father, my Grandpa.

So it was a sad Christmas for me when my parents were separated and I had to go live with my Aunt Myrtle. As Christmas approached I knew it wouldn’t be a very happy one. For one thing, my Aunt and Uncle were poor country folk who barely got by and there would be no big presents for me, my sister, my brother, and my four cousins. There would be a few apples and oranges, some hard candy, some inexpensive toys like jigsaw puzzles and if we were lucky, a turkey for dinner. So the excitement of Christmas Eve, when you can’t get to sleep because there will be presents in the morning, just wasn’t there. I thought about my parents living apart and alone at Christmas and could have cried for the waste of our family.

I woke on Christmas morning and looked out the window to see if there was snow. There wasn’t, of course. It seldom snowed in northern Mississippi and very rarely as early as Christmas. I knew that in Illinois the kids would be sledding and ice skating with this morning’s Christmas presents. I got out of bed and went into the living room. We had only fireplaces for heat so I snuggled up to the fire while I surveyed the presents under the tree. My eyes fell on a Daisy pump BB gun in its new cardboard package with the lid standing open, waiting for me to get up for the best Christmas I ever had. I don’t know how they knew exactly what I wanted. I don’t know how they found the money to buy me such an expensive gift. I only know that a dream came true that day. Dreams seldom do.

For the rest of that school year I lived with my Aunt and Uncle. I found small change here and there to buy BBs for the Daisy and I must have shot at least a million. As time passed and the old Daisy got looser and looser it wouldn’t fire with the power it did when it was new. So I had to aim higher. Looking down the barrel was useless so I learned to shoot from the hip while pumping another chamber full of air for the next shot. I could hit my Aunt Myrtle’s clothes pin gourd swaying on the clothes line in the wind. I could hit every soda can you tossed into the air and one day when I caught the neighbor’s egg stealing dog in the chicken coop I shot it three times while it tried to run. It never came back. (Before you all get on my case, I was ten and the BB gun was so weak it couldn’t hurt the darned dog!) When my parents finally got back together and drove down to pick us kids up in the old Buick with the flaking paint, I took the old Daisy back north with me. Now, fifty years later I don’t know what happened to it. I’m absolutely sure I wore it completely out before I gave up on it and tossed it. As my thoughts go back to that time and a million BBs I can’t believe anyone could shoot that well with a low velocity air rifle. It’s one of my life accomplishments.

Years later I shot highest in my Marine Company. I had a fondness for my rifle that had a great deal more to do with the craftsmanship of it than with the fact that it protected me through combat. It was a tool that couldn’t fail me. I brought that feeling home with me and hunted for a few years but gave it up and traded my gun for an outboard motor. I was discouraged by the overabundance of gun owners who shoot themselves in the foot or pelt me with their misdirected shots. Both of those things happened. I haven’t shot a firearm in years and have no plans to ever shoot one again. I realize I have a strange relationship with guns. I totally believe in the right to own guns and completely in the unworthiness of most gun owners.

I’m reminded of myself when I was just learning to shoot. I took my Grandpa’s shotgun out to the yard to shoot at Grackles. That gun had a 37 inch barrel and I put a long brass hunting shell in the chamber and tilted that gun up high in the sky and waited for a flock of Grackles to fly over. I let fly with a shot that knocked a bird from the sky while the recoil broke my collar bone. I learned a valuable lesson about guns that day. Idiots don’t need, or deserve them.

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