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I Am an Irresponsible Gun Owner
The family farm in my childhood didn’t belong to my father, but to my uncle. Until I was old enough to legally hold a job in the town where we lived, I spent my summers on the farm with my cousins.
On the farm, when the chores were done, we would take the guns from the rack in the mudroom and go shooting. We shot cans and bottles or hunted farm pests unlucky enough to be on my uncle’s “okay to shoot” list. There were three of us. We carried two 22 caliber rifles and a 410 gauge shotgun.
We also did science experiments. We learned that if you sit on top of the machine shed and aim the 410 straight down at the ground right next to a toad, the toad, an animal that can ordinarily only jump about two inches high, will be propelled three feet in the air by the impact of the pellets hitting the earth beside it.
Once I was old enough to work summers in the city, my farm life was over. No more baling hay in the humid Minnesota summer. No barns to clean. And no more guns. There is no “okay to shoot” list when a person lives in town. Through high school and then college, I don’t recall thinking about guns at all.
After college, I married. My wife and I bought our first home, and my father-in-law was aghast that I didn’t have a gun with which to defend his daughter when bad guys attacked. He bought me a gun. It was a…
