[extropy-chat] My dad's gun

[xllb at rogers.com]

My earliest, clear memories include guns.  In the early 1950’s my parents settled about 100 kilometers east of the Iguacu Falls on the border of Brazil and Paraguay.

People got around by horseback.  Men carried guns.

We lived in a relatively lawless, rural area.  Dad built our house out of roughly milled wood.  Through half-inch walls, I couldn’t avoid hearing Mom and Dad discussing gun related deaths. 

“You know Dona Isabella’s husband, Senor Manuel.  He was shot in the head last night.  He’s dead.”

Just after dark the day before, we had all heard the shots from down at the bodega, a country store/bar a kilometer away.  The sound, that somehow manages to be sharp and flat all at once, was common enough to be familiar to a five year old.   The gun murders, suicides, accidents and funerals are clearer.  A cycle of vengeance fed on itself.  Guns were the most efficient way to enact it.

My father kept a revolver ready in the kitchen.  Poisonous snakes, tarantulas and scorpions visited regularly but the gun was kept available to scare meter-long lizards.  They killed our chicks and stole eggs.  They were far too quick to hit with any frequency.  The gun served no other purpose.

Ten years later my family had moved north to a massive leper colony in the center of the Amazon jungle.  Two hours boat ride up river was an inland port called Manaus.  There soldiers with guns blended into the crowds.  Back at our site, most households had rifles and/or shotguns.  I owned fifty percent of a 22-caliber rifle before I turned fifteen.  A younger kid accidentally discharged it one night less than two feet from my head.  The bullet landed on my bed.

Snakes were around but “serpentine” was named after them.  They were a waste of bullets.  Animals of most kinds avoided us.  Tarantulas and such were squashable and most other pests fell foul of a machete chop.

Some of the older kids hunted for fun.  I tried it once.  As I waited quietly, squatting on the jungle floor, a small bird landed five meters above me.  Without thought I shot it.  The silence was immediate.  Then I wept.

Today, watching live CNN video I cringe when reckless men fire handguns, rifles and machine guns into the air.   Isn’t it ironic that those reckless men are celebrating freedom? 




"Dogma blinds."
"Hell is overkill."
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