My siblings and I had many cousins.

One of our aunts had ten acres in Huntington Beach across from the Good Shepard Cemetery. She rented the land out to a farmer who grew hay.

One day several of our families along with many cousins were visiting at my aunt’s house. The kids were out watching the farmer plow the field on his giant tractor.

I was probably six, so my brother was perhaps eleven or twelve. My brother found my fathers 45 caliber long barrel revolver in the car and brought it out to play with, as boys will do.

It looked just like the guns we saw in the westerns on T.V.

My brother put the pistol on a fence post and took aim at the farmer. We all watched in anticipation, of what, I was not sure.

After some time watching the farmer down the barrel of the gun, my brother turned around and the gun went off.

Thankfully it was aimed high above us smaller children and the round passed through my aunts beach shack of a house near the ceiling. The house was built of asbestos shingles and very thin drywall.

The bullet passed through the entire house over all of the adults heads who were visiting and out into the fields far away.

My father came out and had a talk with my brother, I’m sure, though I remember little of that.

The farmer remained unscathed and the house was just slightly damaged.

My father always carried or had a gun handy as he carried cash for our business most days.

We often went out to the desert to shoot at bottles and cans and were all shown how to handle a weapon safely. Ignorance is a deadly thing.

We also were shown how to use a bow. We never were injured or injured anyone else. That house was the only victim over all these years, thankfully.

If you don’t like guns, fine. But don’t try and put your fears about them on others. Do a little research and learn what hunters do for the wildlife in America.

Read up on how many people are saved in their own homes from intruders with their guns. You seldom hear much about that in the papers.

Why is that do you suppose?

If you live in the big city and have a lifestyle not conducive to gun use, so be it. But don’t try to tell others who live elsewhere and in a different environment what to do or how to live their lives.

We are not all the same nor should we want to be, thank goodness.

If you haven’t traveled and seen what the world is really like away from North America, you should.

You might be very surprised!

Perhaps then you will have a different opinion about gun ownership.

I can’t help but write from my own perspective. I was raised in a harsh and somewhat dangerous environment.

My experiences helped to form my views, as yours do.

My friends as a child were adult criminals and alcoholics, so that setting does influence what I write about.

Check out my Novel, “The Adventures of the Smith Family” for a family adventure worth experiencing. It’s up on Amazon now.

Google R.C. Hand, author, to learn ore about me.