Guns - A Personal Story

 Guns are the topic of many a conversation these days, and, I might add, rightly so. As a society we are being forced to take some hard looks at our present policies, laws and practices. And with guns being such a hot topic at present, I thought I might share a little bit of my own personal history as it involved guns.

You see, there was a tie when I had a gun.

And notice, I did say, "Had."

I do not possess a gun today and I, personally, do not feel any need to own one, desire one, or even handle one. While this is my own personal feeling, I do not understand believing that, somehow, a gun provides me personal protection. I am willing to leave that matter to those legally charged with my personal protection.

And I say that just to get it out of the way.

I do not intend to invite any attempts to persuade my changing my mind.

This is just my present, persistent and personal mode of thinking and I am at peace with it.

Having got that out of the way, let me tell you about a time when I actually did have a gun.

And, please, do not ask me what make or what capacity or what anything else about those devices.

I do not know, never even bothered to find out.

All I know is that it was a handgun.

You know. One of those things you can rather easily hold in your hand.

And I would guess that you had to put bullets ito it somehow but I never actually bothered to find out any of those details.

I hd a gun - briefly.

It was my father's gun.

Dad had a gun. For many years he had a gun. He had to have a gun because of his job. He was a Wayne County Deputy Sheriff. In fact for one shift daily five days a week, he was in charge of the operation of the Wayne County Jail.

His job required that he have a gun.

Occasionally, we saw it. He never really showed it off and I have to say, I am not sure if he even shot it off. I would suspect that, because of his job, he would have had to know how to use it and actually get in some actuations practice.

He had a gun and when he retired, his gun retired with him.

It was his to keep and keep it he did.

Frankly, we never really saw it after his retirement. We just sort of knew that he had it.

And when he died, we knew that sooner or later, we would find it and actually have to deal with it.

It was some days after the funeral and we were going through things when the gun was discovered. As I recall, it was wrapped and tucked away in a box high up on a shelf in one of the closets.

The finder, one of my siblings, let out a shrill sound and that let the rest of us know.

The gun had been found.

And as executor of the estate, it fell to me to take possession and deal with that gun.

Keeping it wrapped and boxed, I laid claim to the gun.

It was now mine to deal with and to this day I could not even tell you if it was or was not loaded. I did not take it out of that box or the wrappings.

I did take it home.

And when I got there, I almost immediately placed a phone call to a local police office whom I knew. I explained what I had and asked for professional guidance in dealing with it.

"Do you want to keep it?"

"Not a chance!"

"Does anyone else in the family want it."

"Not a chance."

The officer offered to come and pick the gun up. It would be officially turned in. We would receive a financial compensation for turning it in. ($50.00 as I recall!)

And soon enough that gun was out of sight, out of my hands and on its way to gun heaven or something.

But the fact is that for a few brief hours I actually did have a gun.

And truth be told, I was glad to get rid of it.

Sorry, Dad, but that's the truth!