My experiences with gun-owners

Let's put aside the tired old arguments about gun control. I take issue with the oft-repeated claim that the "vast majority of gun-owners are responsible."

That has not been my experience. I know this is anecdotal evidence but most of the gun-owners I've known have demonstrated gross negligence.

I used to sell rifles and shotguns at K-mart Sporting Goods. I didn't know the people who I sold guns to, so I can't comment over their personal gun safety conduct. But here are the experiences I've had with gun-owners that I have known fairly well.

My grandfather kept a 22 caliber rifle to shoot rats in his garden. He was a responsible and rational person. You can put a checkmark next to his name in the responsible column. I also knew 1 or 2 guys who worked in the circulation department of the Augusta Chronicle that carried guns. It was a dangerous job working as a walking cash register in the ghetto and delivering papers in the worst neighborhoods in the middle of the night. I consider them responsible too(but see below). The rest of these experiences you can chalk up to negligent gun ownership.

1. A 15 year old shot me in the leg with a bb gun on purpose and shot at my friend when I was 10. My mother called his mother and she said, "I knew he would do that. I told his father not to buy him a bb gun."

2. When I was 13 we lived next to a family from Texas. I was friends with the 13 year old boy next door. He frequently bragged about the 3 guns his family had. His father kept them under lock and key, but my friend knew exactly where the key was. On his birthday, his father gave him an air rifle and said, "now don't go shooting songbirds." As soon as his father was gone, my friend went into the woods and shot at every songbird he saw. I was with him and didn't have the integrity at that age to tell him not to shoot songbirds. So 2 13 year old boys (including 1 who defied his father's instructions) had access to 3 firearms.

3. My late father-in-law kept rifles and shotguns strewn all over the guest room. I remember tripping over them when I got up to take a leak in the middle of the night.

4. I never knew a case when a manager or carrier warded off an attack with a gun while I was a manager at the circulation department of the Augusta Chronicle, but I do recall these 3 unfortunate incidences.

a. I had a retired 78 year old sheriff as 1 of my carriers. He delivered papers in a housing project that required him to step out of his vehicle. He got ambushed 1 night by a guy who stole his wallet. No big loss. Just lost his wallet. But he made the mistake of going back to his car to retrieve his gun. He exchanged gunfire and was shot through the liver and almost died. The other guy got away.

b. Another carrier, while delivering papers...somehow his gun fell to the floorboard and it went off, shooting himself in the foot. He couldn't finish his route. Had to go to the emergency room.

c. A black manager delivering papers in a white neighborhood was arrested pretty much for being a black guy carrying a gun in a white neighborhood. BTW, this was the neighborhood I lived in at the time.

5. I smoked a bowl of killer pot with my regular pothead friend. After we smoked this bowl, he got out his handgun and started playing with it--unloading and loading it and twirling it around. Pretty creepy experience for a paranoid pothead like me.

6. For awhile my crazy neighbor had a bad habit of getting drunk and firing his high-powered rifle down the street. I live in a fairly crowded subdivision. One night, after I got drunk too, I walked over there and suggested that firing a rifle in a crowded subdivision might be a bad idea. He said, "but I shoot in the air." I explained the laws of gravity to him and he agreed to stop.

7. My wife gave a bridal shower to this beautiful blonde who was about 23 years old. A few months after she got married, her husband was cleaning his hunting rifle while she was taking a nap on the couch. The gun went off and killed her.