I still remember the dateùOctober 3, 1998. I was ten years old. Someone picked up a 347 Magnum revolver, pointed it at my stomach, and pulled the trigger, shattering my right kidney, blasting a hole through my stomach, and lacerating my liver. I nearly died. I had to be Careflighted to St. JosephÆs childrenÆs hospital in Tampa, where I underwent immediate blood transfusions and major surgery. After several weeks, I was on the road to physical recovery. The trauma of the incident seemed to go on forever, though. I continued to have nightmares about guns and underwent psychological counseling for many years. That one event forever changed my life from one of carefree childlike joy to one of ongoing fear. The person who pulled the trigger did not shoot me intentionally and cannot be blamed. She was a seven-year-old girl whose mother had hidden the gun for ôsafekeepingö under the pillow of her four-year-old sister.
It is hard to say why a parent would put a loaded weapon within the reach of a child, but people do such things every day. Stories like mine are common. In fact, in many cases, the victim does not survive. The trauma of shooting another child is most certainly haunting for such unfortunate children, and the death of the child who is shot is a tragedyùa life that ended before it really had a chance to begin.
What happened to me was the result of poor judgment on the part of that little girlÆs mother. Most accidents like mine are due to making judgment errors, accidentally forgetting about the weapon, or mistakenly assuming that the gun is safety-locked or not loaded. Any of these problems can be given some of the blame for my injuries, but there is a bigger reason that it happened. Gun control laws are too slack. I have heard people argue that guns do not kill people; people kill people. Although there is truth to thatùit takes a person to pull the triggerùit is also true that many s
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