Don't let your boyfriend show you how safe guns are....

A 36 year old man in Michigan was demonstrating how safe unloaded guns are to his girlfriend and fatally shot himself in the head. Three children under 12 were in the house but, thankfully, did not witness the shooting.

Nor is this the first instance of a gun safety resulting in the death of the demonstrator. Two such accidents were reported in 2013 according to the Huffington Post.

It is a tragic irony that even demonstrations of gun safety can result in gun deaths.

None of what I'm saying is meant to make light of tragedies. Quite the contrary, I just want to mourn the senseless deaths of these 3 men and contend that a gun, by it's very nature, is unsafe. Guns are meant to kill. Many people use them safely and for sporting purposes, but by the very nature of guns they are not 'safe' in any understanding I have of that word.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned why I don't own a gun though I grew up in a gun culture in the mountains of West Virginia. I don't own a gun because I know I would use it if I ever felt threatened by someone and, to paraphrase what Kurt Vonnegut once said about nuclear weapons, "I'd rather be the poor, innocent, unfortunate son-of-a bitch that got short than the mean, awful, nasty son-of-a-bitch who did the shooting." Really.






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