Page 58 - You can't Make This Shit Up!

Guns
February 17, 2018
“We know we can’t stop every act of violence, every act of evil in the world, but maybe we could try to stop one act of evil, one act of violence.” -Barack Obama
When we were little, my parents rarely left us. When they would go away, we had Mrs. Marshal. She “took care of us” while my parent were gone.
My memories of Mrs. Marshal was she was old, and mean and made me go to bed without dinner for talking back to her. My sister snuck starburst candy to me and I remember trying to unwrap them quietly so Mrs. Marshal wouldn’t hear. To this day, I don’t like starbursts. I have one other memory of her.
Mrs. Marshal would stay with us at our home. For some reason I was at her house. I am guessing she took me to her house to get her mail, or grab something she forgot. Nonetheless, I remember that she had a bird bath in the back and a HUGE painted portrait of a child over her fireplace. I was a precocious kid (shocker) and I started to ask questions about the little boy in the painting. Who was he? Where was
he? Was he a grown up? Was he her baby?
Here is the story Mrs. Marshal told me.
She said that when that little boy in that painting was 11 he took his father’s gun, and went to play with it in the woods with the 8-year-old who lived next door. While playing, and not knowing the gun was loaded, that 11-year-old shot and killed his neighbor. Then, in fear, turned the gun on himself and so both boys died.
The little boy in the painting was her son. He was the one who shot the neighbor. She then told me that guns are NOT toys and that if I ever so much as touch one, I would either die, or kill someone. Scared me straight (not that I had ANY interest in playing with guns, but it certainly did stick with me. I have never touched a gun).
Granted, that story was told to me by a mean old lady, who told it to me with a oil painting of a dead child looming over me. But it has stayed with me to this day. Id like to say that after I learned about Mrs. Marshal’s son I had a new sense of compassion and we had a beautiful bond. Nope. She was awful and I am fairly certain that when my parent returned from their trip and my sister and brother and I told them about how mean she was, she never babysat us again. But I digress.
That is where my disdain for guns comes from. Now, that being said, I totally respect and understand why people chose to have them. I know hunters. They keep their guns in one place, and the ammunition in another. Which gives way to the question to those of you who have guns for protection. If you have a gun, and the gun is in a safe, and the ammunition is in a separate safe, what do you tell the
intruder? “Stop robbing me and stay right there”! Then you go and get your gun? I don’t get it.