DANGER OF LEAVING PISTOLS ABOUT

The brainless have one perennial joke. This is to take up a firearm, aim it at someone, say “I’ll shoot you,” and then pull the trigger.

Even an unloaded pistol should never be left about. Someone is sure to “snap” it and ruin the lock, lugging at the hammer and pulling at the trigger at the same time, just as people rip out the teeth of the gear of an automobile by altering gear without first taking out the clutch.

If the pistol is loaded, someone is sure to get shot by a fool. Both the owner who left the loaded pistol about and the man who fired it “not knowing it was loaded” are equally to blame.

Aiming firearms in “fun” at people is not empty-headedness solely but a form of hysteria.

It is done by the same people who laugh when at a funeral, or commence to rock a boat in “fun” and cause so many drowning accidents.

The best thing that can happen to such people is for them to “clean a pistol not knowing it was loaded” and shoot themselves.

There is a story of a man who wished to kill a monkey. When he noticed the monkey was looking at him, he took an empty gun, pointed it at his own head, and pulled the trigger. This he repeated many times, propping the butt of the heel plate against a tree and the muzzle against his forehead.

Then the man loaded the gun, put it to full cock, and laid it on the ground and went off.

As soon as he was out of sight, the monkey crept up to the gun and repeated what he had seen the man do.

Result—monkey’s head blown off.

This is the exact mentality of the “did not know it was loaded” fool.

The only difference is that, as soon as such people kill others on the “did not know it was loaded” principle, there are plenty of others to take their place.

As they are always acquitted when they say they “did not know it was loaded,” others imitate, knowing there is no danger of their being hung for this murder.

But if you shoot another man, even if you think he is going to murder you, unless you have let him first have a shot at you, you run the risk of being hung for it; if he turns to run away you must not shoot him in the back as he runs away or you get hung for it.

Parents encourage children in the criminal folly, aiming at people; they give them toy pistols and play themselves with the children pretending to be frightened when the child comes round the corner and fires the popgun or pistol with paper detonator at them.

When this child grows up, he always thinks that to point a firearm at any one and pull the trigger is “humour” and takes the first opportunity to pick up a firearm and point it at people. “Want of the sense of humour” is the unpardonable sin in the opinion of so-called “Humorous writers,” who consider any one not laughing at their obvious drivel is wanting in a sense of humour, and if he abuses mothers-in-law or throws bricks at a starving cat, he considers himself a humorist.

Surely any one pointing a firearm at others in play should be punished by two years’ hard labour. This would soon teach people that they must curb their “sense of humour.”

There are plenty of other “jokes” left such as pulling a chair from under any one about to sit down, or putting tin tacks in his boots; but of course they have the disadvantage of not actually killing him, and you may be prosecuted for damages, but the joke of shooting a man on the “did not know it was loaded” principle entails no unpleasant consequences on the shooter. He is always acquitted even as when a defendant said “I only pulled the trigger to frighten her, having forgotten to unload my rifle when I left the trenches in France to come back to England.” Imagine a soldier not unloading and cleaning his rifle when coming out of the trenches, but leaving it to rust during his leave home in England!!!