I’m back with a fun story to tell! I think it’s interesting, but who knows if you’ll find it that way.
This is the story of how I got a gun pointed at me.
So, I love theater. I especially love musical theater. And my dad loves it too. So he took my whole family to see Assassins. We got great seats, right in the middle, I was basically dead center, it was great. If you don’t know what Assassins is, it’s a musical about famous presidential assassins and attempted assassins in US history.Â
So one thing about this show is that they talk about guns a lot. And they have a lot of guns. The thing about these guns is that they shoot blanks. But that means they can shoot. Even if they don’t have bullets for the show, they’re real guns. And anyways, there’s this one part of the show where they’re talking about guns and they sing the Gun Song.Â
Now, there’s this part in Gun Song where this dude sings, “First of all, when you've a gun-” and all of a sudden points the gun out to the middle of the audience for a long moment before singing, “everybody pays attention!” I can’t really do it justice, it’s a great moment, but care to recall who’s sitting smack dab in the middle of the audience, right where the gun is pointing? Yup. And so, this poor actor is looking me straight in the eye as he is supposed to right? And I’m frozen because oh my god that’s a gun and I can only look back at him. And I saw it in his eyes, the very moment that he realized, oh shit.. that’s a kid. He moved his hand a little bit, but the damage was done.
Now, I obviously don’t blame the poor dude, there’s no way he could have known, but it was kinda scary. I think one of the things that made it more scary for me in particular though is, well, okay. My uncle works with guns. A lot. He’s had a lot of training. And he owns a bunch of guns. Sometimes he takes my brother and I out to the shooting range. So I have shot a gun. I really enjoyed it too! I got a bullseye my first time! But here’s the thing, before we ever touched a gun, at the age of four, and again when we went shooting for the first time, he taught us basic gun safety. (Even if you don’t plan on touching a gun ever this is still something you should know and teach.)
The first rule is this, never point a gun at anyone. Ever. Doesn’t matter if it’s loaded or not, doesn’t matter if the safety’s on or not, never, ever, point a gun at something you aren’t ready to kill.
So, I’ve been taught from a very young age that if a gun is pointed anywhere, that place is a place that whoever is holding the gun is willing to shoot at. And a gun was pointed at me.Â
Look, it’s a brilliant moment. Everybody does pay attention, it get’s everyone focused and on edge and really involved in the musical. But it’s hard to reconcile my knowledge of guns with my love of theater.
Anywho, this got kind of dark. This isn’t meant to be a piece on guns and whatnot, that’s for someone with more authority and experience than me! This was just a story of a very memorable moment in a musical I went tod! It was really fun, and I won’t forget it for as long as I live, that’s for sure!
