Lippard.Multics 1985-01-19 21:54:59 mst Sat
Subject:  Guns Don't Shoot People--Dogs Shoot People
   Guns Don't Shoot People -- Dogs Shoot People
   By Mike Royko, Chicago Tribune

   Once again, it's time to bestow one of the least-coveted honors in
America--this column's Gun Owner of the Year Award.
   For reasons I don't understand, this award upsets some gun owners and
the National Rifle Association. They always remind me that the majority
of gun owners are prudent and careful and seldom shoot anybody.
   Sure they are. But all I try to do is acknowledge the efforts of that
tiny minority of gun owners who account for the 35,000 gunshot deaths
and countless woundings that occur each year. Don't they deserve some
recognition?
   Of course they do. That's why, in past years, we've honored such
winners as the sleepy man who picked up his gun instead of his ringing
phone and shot himself in the ear. And the angry man who shot his
girlfriend in the thigh because she cooked him string beans once too
often.
   Selecting the winner out of this year's finalists wasn't easy.
   As usual, there were the many hunters who mistook their peers for
wild turkeys, deer, squirrels and possums. It's amazing what a striking
resemblance there is between the average person and the average wild
turkey.
   So the Outstanding Achievement by a Deer Slayer award goes to a New
Hampshire man who saw what he thought was a deer coming over a rise in a
road.
   He fired and scored a direct hit. The deer turned out to be a truck
and the driver took a bullet in the shoulder.
   Fortunately, the hunter realized his error in time and did not skin
the driver or have the truck mounted.
   There was also a large number of people in the Man's Best Friend
category.
   In Rock Island, Ill., a man put his rifle on the ground after
shooting a passing bird. As he bent to pick up the bird's carcass, his
dog stepped on the shotgun trigger, causing it to fire and wound the
birdslayer.
   This confirms the NRA's slogan: "Guns don't shoot people--dogs shoot
people." In Dallas, a man became enraged when his two dogs chewed the
wires of his motorcycle. He got a shotgun from his house and began
beating the dogs with the butt. As he thrashed them, the gun went off,
wounding him in the shoulder.
   But the dogs haven't chewed on his motorcycle since.
   An even angrier dog owner was a Fort Lauderdale businessman who vowed
that if his poodle ever nipped him on the ankles again, he would shoot
it.
   Sure enough, the poodle nipped. So the man whipped out his .357
Magnum and began blazing away, killing the poodle.
   "My wife walked in the damn door at the wrong time," he later told
the police, explaining how a bullet bounced off the floor, hitting his
wife in the leg. "She's real mad. But I got the dog."
   As the NRA likes to remind us, most gun owners are good family men.
So this year's Family Togetherness Award goes to the man in Berkeley,
Ill., who was cleaning his pistol while his wife sat nearby,
breastfeeding their infant son.
   The gun, which was wedged between the man's legs, went off. The
bullet went clear through his thigh. It then bounced off the baby's
head, causing a slight cut. It kept going and hit the wife in the arm.
   They all recovered. But when they get together for more of those
quiet family evenings at home, it might be a good idea to let the baby
wear a helmet.
   A special category--the It Could Happen to Anybody Award--is shared
by two worthy recipients.
   First, there was the country-rock guitarist in Houston, who kept a
derringer concealed in his cowboy boots.
   When he asked his girlfriend to yank off his boots, the gun fell out,
hit the floor, went off and got him in the tummy.
   He recovered and is reported to be wearing sneakers these days.
   And a man in Nebraska was out in the countryside, shooting bottles
off a fence, when a bug flew up his nose. He dropped the gun, which
discharged and wounded his leg.
   Things like that never happened to John Wayne.

[submitted by Charlie Spitzer]