Exist Yesterday.

"When even one child dies due to easy access to guns, I’d expect an empathetic nation to say enough. Hunting deer and practicing marksmanship are not worth the lives of our citizens."

James Reeves’ experience at the shooting range mirrors my own, a couple years ago now, to a surprising degree.

My brother was in the Army at the time. The whole family went down to the range, his treat; I took a couple of turns and hated it — the dead, brutal weight of the gun in my hand, the overwhelming noise of the gunfire echoing back against the concrete floor in a sort of perpetual slap, the low-level terror of being around so many living instruments of death, the imputed disgrace to my red-blooded American manhood that I neither felt comfortable doing it nor proved to be a very good shot. (Yes, quite ridiculous; but not from inside.)

The only times I’ve ever, as an adult, thought about handling guns have been when I’ve contemplated suicide, and even then as if over a vast theoretical gulf — no doubt, nevertheless, an excellent reason to keep away from them. (Then again I’ve thought about throwing myself in front of traffic too, and have yet to deny myself pedestrianism.)

Anyway. It’s a (typically) good piece, and I recognized myself in it, was all I wanted to say.