Like many people, I have a bad temper. Fortunately I have learned to control it in recent years. But when I was younger, I could easily be triggered by a slight, an injustice or a threat from some bully. As I was thinking about this today, it occurred to me that if back then during several of those altercations, if I had a gun, I might have used it. What a horrible thought. I can recall being so blind with fury that during a confrontation I just might have lost reason long enough to pull a trigger. Sadly, I think that's why many otherwise decent people are in jail today. Because they foolishly purchased a gun. And while it was supposedly for protection, it did them more damage than a robbery or assault could ever have done. That gun cost them their freedom. I recall an old man who shot a teenager who wouldn't turn down the maddening volume of his boom box. That man is in jail. I could have been that man. Every day somebody kills someone in a temporary anger and pays an enormous price for a moment of madness. I feel sorry for all those people. They are not hardened criminals. They are probably not even generally mean or abusive. But they can't reverse what they did. The worst thing in the world you can have is a gun, especially if you also have a temper.
Note: As you may know this week the Nazi head of the NRA Wayne LaPierre said, "The only way to stop a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun." What a fool this man is. Most deaths by gun are not caused by "bad men" but by ordinary people who make a mistake or react in a moment of temporary madness because, as I said, they owned a f******* gun.
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