A Texan Take on Guns

you might be surprised

I grew up in this town. Someone sent me this archival photo of a popular annual event that was stopped in 1999 when a dozen students died because of a random accident. In Feb 2020, a 19yr old woman and her 20 yr old sister and a toddler were all shot nearthis location. It didn’t make national news, neither did the multiple shooting deaths in 2022, 2021, or any of the other years.

I was born in Texas. We had a six-foot rattlesnake in our dryer that my dad killed with a shovel while the four kids watched. When we propped the doors open so the breeze could come in, tarantulas the size of your open palm would lurk in the upper corner of the door and you’d go out the window to keep from having to pass beneath it. I lived in the country, where walking barefoot got the…