The bipartisan firearms bill, supported by President Clinton, that would hold adults criminally responsible if they allow children easy access to firearms might have prevented me, at 12 years old, from putting a gun to the head of my best friend, Calvin Miller.
I had overheard Dad tell one of his friends that he didn’t have ammunition for the gun, so I thought it wasn’t loaded. I was wrong.
I had lured Calvin into my parents’ bedroom while they were away at work. Thirty-three years later, I can’t get it out of my mind how he smiled that day as I toyed with him about pulling the trigger.
The pistol was spoils from World War II, when Dad had sniped a German riding a motorcycle down a dirt road. He said when the soldier took the hit, the bike went into a loop for a couple of revolutions before falling into the dust. The soldier’s black 9 mm handgun was unique in that it was engraved with the guards’ crest of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. The theory was that the Nazi had taken it from one of the queen’s guards before Dad had claimed it from the mortally wounded German.
Guns were part of our home furnishings. There was a rack of assorted weapons on display in our dining room. I received my first firearm, a 20-gauge shotgun from Sears, when I was 10 years old. I loaded it with shot for the first time on the same night the Beatles went on the “Ed Sullivan Show.” I stuffed cartridges in and out of the gun while trying to catch glimpses of the show, but I had to be careful Dad didn’t notice I was interested in the British pop group. He said they were sissies. When I took my shotgun outside to break it in, Dad and Granddad encouraged me to shoot some birds perched on a fence. I pretended I couldn’t see them. They pointed and instructed me, “There! Shoot that one.” “Where?” “Over there! Can’t you see that one right in front of you!” I squinted and played blind. The charade continued until they finally gave up. A few days later Dad sent me to the doctor for glasses. I guess the last thing that he could ever imagine was that his son had no guts to kill.
But I got over it.
The last animal I killed was a squirrel feeding in the bough of a weathered oak. I set the gun’s sight on its silhouette, which was stenciled in the sun, and fired hot lead into the twisted branch. It vanished in the blast. I ran to the tree and found it writhing in the grass, jerking out of control, staring up at me in stark terror. I left it to die alone, but its bleeding, frightened image lives on inside me.
When I pulled the handgun on Calvin, it was so easy, I reached into the top right drawer of my parents’ bureau. I knew exactly where it was. I slipped my hand under some papers and sneaked it out. I teased Calvin for awhile, and he smiled and kept saying, “Cooper don’t do it.”
Calvin understood how lethal guns could be. His dad was a county sheriff. “All it takes is just one squeeze,” I reminded him. I delighted in his obedience. I was a god with the pistol in my hand.
I pressed the steel barrel against his left temple and ordered him not to move. He froze. I fingered the deadly little trigger. He lowered his head. He whispered “Cooper don’t do it.” So I didn’t. When I pulled the magazine out to show him it was empty, there were eight bullets stacked inside with one poised in the chamber. Both of us were shocked. Calvin left in a hurry. I don’t remember that we ever mentioned it again.
I’ve wondered many times why I didn’t pull the trigger. I was so determined that the click of it in his ear would be the laughing climax of my foolish prank.
After I read the statement by Sen. John Chafee (R-R.I.) co-sponsor of the bill, that the new bill would provide a powerful incentive for adults to store their guns safely and that after-the-fact fines were useless, I remembered Calvin. And I pray that the senator’s comments come true.
