Fire Guns

What unfolded in Tyler yesterday was beyond words. Calling it shocking or awful or tragic wouldn't nearly sum it up sufficiently.

(And as I write this, "1916" by Motorhead starts playing on Launch. I think I'll post the lyrics at the end of this)

A man licensed to carry a handgun confronted the killer in the middle of it all, and by some accounts exchanged gunfire with him. They say that by doing that he likely saved the life of the killer's son, who was apparently the next intended victim. The handgun magazines are probably already writing articles about this man's selfless act.

The handgun didn't help the Samaritan, however. I admire his bravery, but I do wonder about the usefulness of the concealed handgun license.

I'm not licensed, but I do own a gun that I keep in a gun safe beside the bed. Opening it requires a combination. I went to open it a couple of weeks ago and couldn't produce the right numbers in the dark... so there, in my moment of fear as I heard something suspicious, the gun was useless.

***

In the van this morning, THEBOY said, "If there's a bad guy you need to shoot him with your fire gun." ("Fire gun" is what he calls a real gun; the other type of gun, to him, is a water gun, which goes in the bath tub).

I tried to explain that we really don't want to shoot anyone unless we have absolutely no other choice. I told him that we let the police deal with bad guys.

"Some police shoot bad guys with their fire guns."

Hoo boy.

So... I said that even the police are only supposed to do that when they have no other choice. I explained that even bad guys have mamas and daddies, and if they get shot they probably won't ever see the people they love again.

***

God, I always had BB guns and pellet guns, and once I was about 10, the occasional rifle or shotgun on loan from Dad.

My grandfather lived on several acres of woodlands in Brazoria, and Dad would send me out there with a .22 to shoot as many crows or squirrels as I wanted.

I was walking back one day, and there was this rustling in the palmettos right off the trail. Something BIG was back there, bigger than I'd ever encountered in the woods. Scared me silly.
So I'm 10 or 11, holding a rifle, and something big is making a commotion in the underbrush... what do you think I did?

Nothing, and thank GOD, because it turned out it was Dad hiding back there, just messing with me. I was a fairly responsible guy, but I have to admit that the thought crossed my mind to just shoot blindly.

I don't think I've ever told Dad that. But I think he'd be glad to know that I behaved according to how he taught me to handle a firearm.

***

Our house was broken into on Christmas day once. I was probably 17. We'd been in Lake Jackson for the day, spending time with Dad's girlfriend and her kids. We came home to discover the muddy footprints, a few items obviously out of place. We began to wonder if someone might still be in there. Dad got guns for each of us, and we checked out the house.

There, in that moment when confronting a "bad guy" in my home was a very real possibility, I asked myself if I could shoot someone with the gun in my hand. Turns out the answer was a resounding yes.

But no one was there anyway.

***

We were a household with two men and a teenage girl. A burglar is most likely, we assumed, to look for small valuables, like jewelry and such. And we just didn't really have any. Dad was kind of insulted that nothing was taken.

***

I've been held at gunpoint before, and it's a type of terror unlike anything else. Hands against a wall, an angry redneck ranting as he paced behind my friends and me. It's easy when watching such a situation on TV to make claims about how you'd handle it, but let me tell you, the first thing that happened to me was that my knees turned to jelly. No way I could have run, and when the cops arrived and saved our necks I could barely even walk. Odd.

***

I'm 36. What will the next 36 years hold for me? I hope they're full of peace and love and eduation and satisfaction. And chocolate chip cookies.

***

Happy Friday.

***

"1916"

Sixteen years old when I went to the war
To fight for a land fit for heroes
God on my side and a gun in my hand
Chasing my days down to zero
And I marched, and I fought
And I bled, and I died
And I never did get any older
But I knew at the time
That a year in the line
Was a long enough life for a soldier

We all volunteered
And we wrote down our names
And we added two years to our ages
Eager for life
And ahead of the game
Ready for history's pages

And we brawled, and we fought
And we hoped to be stuped
Ten thousand shoulder to shoulder
A thirst for the Hun
We were food for the gun
And that's what you are when you're soldiers

I heard my friend cry
As he sank to his knees
Coughing blood as he screamed for his mother
And I fell by his side
And that's how we died
Clinging like kids to each other

And I lay in the mud, and the guts and the blood
And I wept as his body grew colder
And I called for my mother, but she never came
Though it wasn't my fault, and I wasn't to blame
The day not half over, and ten thousand slain
And now there's nobody remembers our names

And that's how it is
For each soldier