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| Me in my Phoenix uniform |
It’s been a long time since I posted anything to this blog, partly
because we’ve been preoccupied with looking for a place to live but mostly I
just didn’t feel like it. What’s been going on in the US this past year is,
to say the least, depressing and these days any thoughts or arguments you
might want to share end up just preaching to the choir. But this latest
school shooting in Florida has made me consider that my experiences could
have some value and that by sharing at least one story, people might
understand my attitudes about guns in general and why I’m glad to be living
someplace now where this is not an issue.
I wrote this essay over ten years
ago and it was published in the St. Petersburg Times in Florida. I
think I titled this “The Night I Almost Killed Someone” but the paper ran it
under the headline of “Seconds of hesitation, a lifetime of what-ifs” and
the continuation page headline of “Haunting lesson about the terrible
power of guns” and I’d agree with that. I tried to find a link for this but
it seems to be in the archives now so I took the time to rewrite it, making
a couple of corrections.
This single incident, which
lasted probably all of a minute, if that, scared me for years. I’m happy
about the way it turned out but at the same time spent the rest of my career
hoping I’d never find out whether my next hesitation would kill me. The
weapon I carried almost every day of my life for over 25 years was never
much of a comfort and more of a curse. The awesome responsibility that goes
with the carrying of a firearm is something I never minimized. This thing
ruled my life for almost 30 years and one of the happiest days of my life
was the day I turned it in. Ever since I’ve considered the extreme gun
culture of the United States to be so much hot air and mostly macho
bullshit. Unfortunately, the consequences of this is the world's largest gun
death count.
I’m glad I never had to make the
decision again. Read this and ask yourself if this is something anyone
should have to go through because, if the NRA and Republicans have their
way, a school teacher will have this to consider. And is this the life
you want for your kids?
