The gun culture wasn't what I would have called it then as a child in the 1950s. I likely would have called it "The Minute Men" way of looking at things.
The United States never could have existed at all without the home militia self volunteer army that threw of King George's yoke in the late 1770s.
So, when I was 8 (this was considered very old '8' by my Grandmother, a Native Texan and one of three daughters to a very wealthy Texas family. Because by 4 to 6 years of age boys were usually given their first gun unless they weren't sane and safe enough. This was done from the 1600s here in the U.S. to the Viet Nam Era where there were many peace activists. So, this tradition of giving your boy a gun and turning him into a minuteman has been here in the U.S. since the 1600s and PLymouth Rock. If you hurt a person (even if you were 4 to 6 years old) with that gun you were fully held accountable as an adult. You would be tied to a tree and whipped until you were bloody. If you killed someone your family might just shoot you for it. This was the code of the wild west in action. You knew at 4 to 6 years old if you shot someone you would be killed the next second or two without trial. So, if you wanted to live and not be killed or bull whipped until you were bloody you knew your place. A gun was a tool like a car or a bicycle. And when your family gave you a gun if you screwed up you would be killed if someone died at your hands. NO questions asked. Life in the wild west.
So, when I visited her at her and Grandad's house in Lake Forest Park Washington she handed me my father's Remington .22 17 shot pump action rifle and said to me, "This was your Dad's first rifle for hunting food."
I sort of looked at my grandmother differently after that. That likely (giving me a gun right out of the blue) was the single most surprising thing she ever did. It would be like a flower talking to you and saying, "Here is your father's first rifle. It's yours now." After all, I was only 8 years old. I knew I was an honored sane member of the family who was now trusted with the protection of my family.
However, I was always very trustworthy and more grown up than most kids my age at any age. I sort of saw this because of almost dying from both whooping cough and Blunt trauma childhood epilepsy by the time I was 15.
Next, a friend of my father's (Leonard Deetz) a single guy from my parents church gave me an H&R .22 9 shot revolver. This really surprised me that he wanted me to have it. He said he got it when he was in the Army during the Korean War. I was 9 or 10 then.
The pistol was very very loud as most short barreled things are even though it had a barrel of almost a foot long for accuracy. I think the barrel on this one was 8 to 10 inches long.
I only remember killing one poisonous snake with it that was trying to get into our friend's desert home. It is 9 times more powerful a sidewinder rattlesnake than a diamond back rattler. So, I stood back far enough so it couldn't strike at me and kill me with 9 times stronger rattlesnake venom and fired about 5 or 6 shots until I had blown the head off. We couldn't have something that deadly around a house trying to come into the kitchen through an open door. The snake is little and called the Green Mohave sidewinder rattler. I was about 20 then which would be 1968.
The only problem I had with considering killing anyone happened when I was 9 or 10. Since I was trusted as a little man I was watching two boys play mumbley peg I didn't know at Maple Park in Glendale. Many strange goings on happened at that park including a man masturbating visibly in his car from the time I was 8 to 12 years old living near there. There was also a small boy who swore at me (age 4) and told me he was going to kill me. I chased after him to beat him senseless for threatening me (zero supervision) (where the hell were his parents?)
But, what his game was was he would run to any house and ring the doorbell so I couldn't beat the living shit out of him for swearing at me. This is how it was done in society then. This is how order was maintained. If a child was crazy enough to swear at me at any any I beat the living shit out of them until they stopped this nonsense one step short of sending them to the hospital. You did whatever was necessary back then. This was exactly how life was lived.
Well. I'm standing there about 5 feet away from these two crazy insane boys who are playing mumbletypeg. I was about 9 years old. They were like the juvenile delinquents you saw in the movie
"Stand by me" the one that Will Wheaton was in. These two assholes it turns out were even worse than the assholes in the movie because of how they tortured me for at least 1 hour. I had no idea (at age 9) whether they were indeed going to cut my head off like they told me they would. They held a knife (a mumbley peg knife) to my throat and as the blood from the knife (luckily they didn't hit an artery) rolled down into my shirt I was helpless as the really crazy one cut me while having an arm around me and telling me he was going to cut my head off with his knife cutting me and laughing at me. They tortured me for about 1 hour telling me they were going to kill me. I had never been exposed to people crazy enough to kill me like this.
Strangely enough, I never trusted another human being after this experience but I was prepared to kill people ever after that to not go through something like this ever again.
So, this totally destroyed my boyhood sense of trusting another human being ever again. This prepared me to kill if necessary to avoid another experience like this.
I became real after this and become ready to kill someone at a moments notice after this. This action of these crazy insane twisted boys (13 to 15 years of age) (I'm 9). So, when they tired of making me bleed and torturing me without end they let me go and I ran home to load my gun to run back and kill them I was so angry. So, I didn't tell my parents about this (because I was a man settling scores). As I loaded my gun to go kill these boys (I figured about 10 shots each in the face and heart would kill them bastards dead) I realized the police were going to either shoot me or I was going to wind up the rest of my life in prison unless I could somehow get a hold of myself. By then, my rifle was fully loaded to kill them (if they were still playing mumbley peg) and I hadn't talked to anyone about my rage and PTSD from being cut and tortured for an hour. My rage was out of control. NOw remember I'm a straight A student on the honor roll and not some completely dumb ass. I win spelling bees regularly and some people hate me because I have such a good memory and am such a good speller.
I finally realize I need to call a male friend and tell him what has happened (another 9 year old). He says, "Those fucking bastards deserve to be killed for what they did to you. However, don't do it. I know which boys you are talking about because they have a reputation for doing this to kids littler than themselves. He Fred, let someone else kill them. If you do it then your life will be over. Let someone else kill them. People who do shit like that aren't going to see 20 anyhow. Why should you have to give up your life. Likely it will be a cop that kills them or someone in prison."
I thought about this. I was starting to get more reasonable and I said, "I think you are right! I won't kill them. Today you saved both their lives and mine. Thanks, John, do you want to go ride our bikes and see a movie in downtown Glendale?
Sure, it's summer time and I'm freed up. I just modified my Schwinn bike with motorcycle handlebars. You've just got to see it Fred.
I said, "Yeah I've got risers on mine like a motorcycle now too. I likely could deliver newspapers standing up peddling this way with risers this high."
He said, "yeah. Let's just ride up there to see what's playing for fun" I said "Yeah. My house is on the way to the theaters. Let's check out the Alex theater first". He said, "Yeah. That one's a little like Grahman's Chinese theater nearby in Hollywood." I said, "Yeah it's the coolest in Glendale, California.
Note: The above is a completely factual true story of how close I came to murdering those two boys for what they did to me. No questions asked. MY friend saved my life that day in more ways than one.
It helped I was really really smart to think my way out of killing people. Thank you God!
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