For Safety’s Sake, Some Gun Collectors Should Switch to Stamps

According the Associate Press,five people were wounded in accidental shootings at gun shows in North Carolina, Indiana and Ohio on Saturday. That’s five shooting victims—all in one day!

At the Dixie Gun and Knife Show in Raleigh, a 12-gauge shotgun discharged as its owner unzipped its case for a law enforcement officer to check at a security entrance, injuring three people, a state Agriculture Department spokesman said. Two bystanders and a retired deputy sheriff were hit by shotgun pellets and taken to a hospital.

Sheriff Donnie Harrison said that it was too early to know whether the shotgun’s owner might be charged, but that it appeared to be an accident. (But don’t be surprised if the victims are the ones who end of being charged—with failure to wear a bullet proof vest at a public gun show.)

The North Carolina show, which is held at the state fairgrounds (not annually, but four times a year), usually draws thousands of people (some of whom actually survive the event unscathed).

In Indianapolis, police said a 54-year-old man was injured when he accidentally shot himself while leaving a gun show. (He could have saved himself the entry fee if he would have just shot himself before leaving home.)

Emory L. Cozee, of Indianapolis, was loading his .45 caliber semi-automatic when he shot himself in the hand as he was leaving the Indy 1500 Gun and Knife show at the state fairgrounds. Police said that loaded personal weapons aren’t allowed inside the show, but (presumably since the shooting occurred outside the building in the fairgrounds parking lot) no charges will be filed. (After a trip to the emergency room, Cozee is comfy once again.)

And in Ohio, a gun dealer was checking out a semi-automatic handgun he’d just bought when he accidentally pulled the trigger. The gun’s magazine had been removed, but one round remained in the chamber, police said. The afore-mentioned (magic) bullet appears to have ricocheted off the floor and struck the gun owner’s friend in the arm and leg. The (erstwhile) friend was taken by helicopter to a hospital 30 miles north in Cleveland; his condition was not immediately known.

…

Now I’m not trying to trounce on anyone’s God-given American rights (except the self-allocated “right” to hunt and kill animals recreationally), but for safety’s sake, maybe some of these folks should take up crocheting, knitting or collecting stamps, rather than gun collecting. Once they’ve mastered benign hobbies such as these, if they still feel the puerile need to prove their machismo, they could work back into it slowly, starting with craft shows or canasta tournaments.

Hell, it sounds like playing Russian roulette is probably a safer pastime than attending some of those gun shows.

How the Grinch Stole Hunting Season

In answer to the awful, dreadful opening day of hunting season, I’m re-posting the following uplifting poem (based on the Dr. Seuss classic Christmas cartoon)…

How the Grinch Stole Hunting Season

Every hunter

Down in Hunt-ville

Liked hunting season a lot…

But the Grinch,

Who lives just North of Hunt-ville,

Did NOT!

The Grinch hated hunting! The whole hunting season!

Now, please don’t ask why. There are many good reasons.

It could be because hunter’s heads aren’t screwed on quite right.

It could be, perhaps, that their belts are too tight.

But I think that the most likely reason of all

May be that their hearts (and other parts) are two sizes too small.

“They’re cleaning their guns!” the Grinch snarled with a sneer.

“Tomorrow is hunting season! It’s practically here!”

Then he growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming,

“I MUST find a way to keep hunting season from coming!”

For, tomorrow, he knew…

…All the Hunt-girls and boys

Would wake up bright and early. They’d rush for their toys!

Their rifles, their shotguns—all things that destroy!

And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!

That’s one thing he hated! The NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!

Then they’d carve up the body of some unfortunate beast,

Which was something the Grinch couldn’t stand in the least!

And they’d feast! And they’d feast!

And they’d FEAST! FEAST! FEAST! FEAST!

I MUST stop hunting season from coming!

…But HOW?”

Then he got an idea!

A brilliant idea!

THE GRINCH

GOT A WONDERFUL, INSPIRED IDEA!

“I know just what to do!” The Grinch laughed in his throat.

And he made a quick Santy Claus hat and a coat.

And he chuckled, and clucked, “What a great Grinchy trick!

With this coat and this hat, I’ll look just like Saint Nick

And I’ll slide down their chimneys, empty bags in my fist,

AND I’LL STEAL ALL THEIR FUCKING AMMO!”

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson

A Natural Reaction

Like the Grinch, I hate noise.  

My detestation for din is rooted in an awareness of what it usually portends.

There are a lot of loud sounds in the natural world: a pond full of enthusiastic frogs, an energetic waterfall or the crashing of ocean breakers. But these are still relatively pleasing to the ear. Noise is a word that, to my mind, usually describes something man-made: an un-muffled car or motorcycle revving its engine, a loaded logging truck using compression to slow down for a corner, a monotonous jackhammer, Ted Nugent’s screeching voice or, of course, gunfire. I suppose there are a few natural sounds that could rival man’s machinery—a major earthquake or perhaps a volcano going off. But, like the sources of anthropogenic racket, these are the upshot of highly destructive processes.

Being the adaptable, accomplished noisemakers they are, sometimes people can be conditioned to thinking they actually enjoy things that should be unsettling to their senses—a burst of firecrackers or a Ted Nugent concert. But most animals are naturally stressed or panicked by the nerve-racking report of a high-powered rifle or a bombardment of blasts. It’s not just that they have keener senses; they instinctively know that such noise spells danger.

A lot of dogs experience extreme anxiety from fireworks or the blare of gunfire, often because they have an intimate or innate understanding of their destructive capabilities. We adopted an older dog from a shelter in Montana whose mortal fear of firearms must have been the result of someone using her as a target in her earlier life. Keiko would tremble every time she heard a gunshot; she’d seek shelter and would be inconsolable until the shooters had called a cease fire.

One winter morning during duck hunting season, a crazed, relentless volley of shots was too much for her. She ran off, and though we looked for her everywhere for weeks, we never saw her again.