(From April, 2016)

Over the years, the thing that has caused me my biggest falling out with friends has been guns.

After every mass shooting, when the whirr of noise cranks up on social media about what to do, what to do, some of my conservative friends begin shrieking that this will be the excuse the government uses to come for their guns.

I used to argue about with them about it, pointed out that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (recently deceased) once said in his mind the limit to the second amendment was maybe rocket launchers.

Maybe.

Justice Scalia wasn’t sure, but he thought that maybe the ability to knock passenger planes out of the sky wasn’t an absolute right guaranteed to an average U.S. citizen.

The man was a laugh riot.

My point was the U.S. Supreme Court led by conservatives surely wouldn’t be tinkering with the second amendment. I doubted a more liberal court would wade in until laser death rays became an actual thing you could buy at Walmart.

Lately, I’ve been hearing things from the other side –concerns about the new unlicensed conceal and carry law that will soon go into effect in West Virginia.

People are worried, and I don’t know what to think.

I don’t know much about guns, though I’ve been surrounded by them my entire life.

Growing up in rural Virginia, one of my best friends, Robbie Santolla, and his father, Bobbie, were avid hunters. They owned about a dozen rifles and handguns between them, plus an assortment of bows, arrows, and ridiculously wicked-looking knives.

Across the street, we jokingly referred to it as “an arsenal.”

I know better now. They were actually lightweights.

The men in my family from Eastern Virginia were big hunters, too. They never missed a season.

Back in those days, one of the preferred methods for hunting was to load up a pickup truck full of dogs, meet friends on some back road, let the dogs loose to scare up a deer, and then sit by the tailgate with loaded shotguns, drinking yourself half blind as the sun slowly rose in the east.

Hunting accidents seemed to occur with some frequency back then.

Guns and hunting were part of my community growing up. Every year, on the first day of deer season, the halls at the high school thinned out a little as some of my classmates skipped school to go and try to get their limit.

It was nothing to see beater Fords and Chevys in the high school student parking lot with full gun racks in back. Kids went hunting before and after school.

I hunted a couple of times. I have a 20-gauge, inherited from my grandfather. I’ve even used it –maybe two or three times?

The last time, I was 11. My father took me hunting.

One early October or November morning, the two of us hunkered down in the tall weeds on the edge of a recently cleared corn field hoping to ambush some buck or doe.

Dad said I scared the deer off with my snoring.

Hunting never connected with me. I didn’t enjoy stumbling around in the cold woods in the wee hours, and I was a little intimidated by the kick and boom of my antique shotgun.

The gun nearly knocked me on my butt the first time I pulled the trigger, and wasn’t much better after I knew what to expect. It was loud. My ears would ring for minutes after I fired, and I hated the salty, burned smell of gunpowder.

So, the 20-gauge went in my bedroom closet, where it stayed untouched for 30 years, until after my mother had a stroke, and we had to sell her house.

Still, even though I didn’t handle guns, they were still always around.

Through my college years at Concord College in Athens, there were still hunting rifles in the parking lot. A lot of people commuted to campus, but I also had friends who kept .22s and .38 pistols with them in the dorms or carried them concealed to class.

A few years after graduation, I shared an apartment with a college friend. One afternoon, he called, and told me he was on his way to Chicago. His 80-something year-old grandfather with dementia had become unhinged.

The man drank and so drunk and disoriented, he’d beaten his 80-something year-old wife, and put her in the hospital.

My roommate went with his father to help make separate nursing home arrangements. Because of his grandfather’s illness, the police didn’t want to press charges, but didn’t think he should live on his own –or with his wife.

It was a nightmarish family crisis that only got worse as they went through the family home. While looking through paperwork, figuring out bills and finances, my roommate and his father discovered signs of his grandfather growing paranoia. For at least a few months, he’d been squirreling away money and guns, hiding them under furniture and in the walls.

At least one pistol came home to West Virginia, where it fell into my possession, because my roommate couldn’t figure out what else to do with it.

I thought maybe I could sell it or something.

I don’t remember precisely, but I kept the gun around for a few weeks, and then shoved it into a box along with some old clothes I’d been keeping around for years. I’d packed on some weight through my 20s, but thought I might get thin again one day.

A couple of years later, I discovered “The South Beach Diet” and temporarily slimmed down again. I’d completely forgotten I even had the gun until, while slipping on out of fashion blue jeans, I reached the bottom of the box.

I didn’t like having the gun around. Even finding it again, seemed like a bad omen and an invitation for disaster. I wanted to be rid of it, but had no idea about how? Selling it outright at a flea market seemed irresponsible, and so did just tossing it in the trash.

Eventually, I gave it to a relative who was willing to take it off my hands.

Looking back, I’ve wondered if that was really the right thing to do –passing the buck.

As much as guns have been part of my world, I really know next to nothing about them, what my actual rights are concerning gun ownership and use, or even why I’m uncomfortable holding even an unloaded pistol.

So, for the month of April, I’ll be taking myself through a crash course about handguns, hopefully learning how to use them, and maybe wading into part of the ongoing discussion about guns and who should have them and under what circumstances.

I’m not looking to convince anyone of anything, just figure a few things out, and maybe get past some of my anxiety.