Tips for practicing gun safety at all times whether at home, hunting or at the range. Wochit
Target practice(Photo: Submitted)
I don't like guns.
And, until last Sunday, I had never shot a real gun.
Yes, I have played laser tag, cops and robbers, and other games that require you to use a pretend firearm, but the real thing ... no, not for me.
At my home, we morbidly, and inappropriately, joke that if I owned a gun I would probably shoot myself.
Unfortunately, as I learned in my gun safety course on Sept. 23, firearm injuries and deaths because of ignorance and carelessness[1] are far too common.
What led to this event was the alarms raised in newsrooms nationwide by a mass shooting that hit close to home on June 28. A disgruntled man shot and killed five employees of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland.
Since that time, my colleagues at The Tennessean and I have undergone active shooter training from the Metro Nashville Police Department and "Stop the Bleed" training from Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
I decided then it was time to apply for a concealed firearms license.
My job requires me to be in public frequently, and what started as a reaction out of fear evolved into a true desire to learn and understand.
Further, it became an opportunity to continue a conversation I had started[2] at The Tennessean in 2017 with nearly two dozen gun owners about responsible firearm ownership.
I told them then that I had an open mind about guns. It
