Gun safety is of paramount importance today and rightly so. But handling guns in past generations was by comparison, relaxed to say the least. A mother and her son know about this first hand.
Their neighborhood had plenty of playing opportunities but like forbidden fruit (apple) in the Bible, there was one place that was absolutely off limits, the neighbor’s garage where he kept his guns including a BB (pellet) gun whose fancy ornamentation was the envy of the boys who were occasional visitors. But the owner was careful to secure the weapons and often reminded the boys that they were hands off. Apparently this only increased their determination to hold the BB gun directly despite warnings but being only 3rd graders, they conveniently ignored common sense warnings.
The mother was carrying on her household duties not thinking of an impending crisis but without warning as often happens, it came in the form of her young son who rushed into the house crying, then ran into his bedroom and crawled underneath his bed without any explanation. This most unusual behavior naturally alarmed her so she followed him asking questions which he was unable to answer immediately because of his uninterrupted wailing. About all she could get out of him were the near unintelligible “I didn’t mean to do it” words between sobs. And then there was a pounding on the front door.
The irate, grim faced neighbor wasted no time in pleasantries but loudly came to the point saying, “Your son just shot my child!” and immediately left to attend to his son.
The mother unable to talk with her near unresponsive son and hearing this accusation of her neighbor about a shooting was momentarily speechless with anxiety. Impossible to assimilate questions immediately came to mind: Who was shot? How did it happen? Is the person shot hurt or even dead? And then she realized from what few words she could gather from her son that he was involved. What am I going to do? What is going to happen to my son? Will he go to jail?
Distraught beyond reason, she ran to her son’s bedroom. He was still underneath the bed but now somewhat able to answer her questions. The two boys had entered the neighbor’s garage initially simply to look at the gun collection but upon entering, were overwhelmed by the sight of the BB gun and being unable to resist the temptation, had innocently removed the gun from its rack simply to hold it and inspect it. But that proved not to give them any satisfaction so the crying-under-the-bed boy decided to show his friend how the gun worked. He cocked the shooting mechanism, and as he was proudly showing his friend his accomplishment, the gun, somehow, fired. The pellet could have gone to a thousand places but under Murphy’s Law guess when the shot went. Right. It grazed his friend’s check but from his reaction, it might have done mortal damage. His friend wasted no time on the scene and ran home screaming to his parents. So did the
shooter.
The mother had no time to cast blame because she was so anxious to learn the outcome. But she did not have to wait long since the neighbor paid a second visit, but this time he was more controlled. The mother up until this time was not sure that a death had not occurred so one could imagine how relieved she was when she was given the news that the accident had not caused any appreciable injury, and the neighbor was now sympathetic to her concerns. There would be no jail time for her little boy.
Her last visit to the bedroom where her son was hiding was with good news which caused the crying to cease and the tears diminish. But he still had to listen to a stern lecture from his mother about avoidance of guns in the future.
It was a lesson well learned and long remembered.
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Bill Lee, PO Box 128, Hamer, SC 29547
