First of two parts

Bell View –A few friends from my old neighborhood w qualify as legitimate “gun nuts.” Am I afraid these guys are going to snap and start picking people off from the roof of a Motel 6? No. But I remember being 15 years old at a friend’s house for one of those parents-are-out-for-the-night parties.

We were drinking beer and shooting pool in the basement. Eventually we wandered up into my friend’s parents’ bedroom. We took out his dad’s 30-ought-6 gun.

My friend’s dad would also qualify in Silver Lake as a gun nut. He had a lot of guns. He shot them every chance he got. But he was also obsessed with safety and overall respect for guns. He taught his kids how to shoot, how to clean and care for a gun, and how to respect the power of a gun.

He could have done a better job of locking them up – but I believe he never imagined his own kids would do something as stupid as we were about to do.

Nonetheless, after guzzling a couple of beers, a few of us 15-year-olds decided to take a few pot shots across the vacant lot at the light on top of the park field house with a high-powered rifle.

When my turn came, the rifle jerked in my hands. The scope left a small cut between my eyebrows. Blood trickled down my face, and I got a queasy feeling.

Needless to say, the police showed up at my friend’s house within minutes.

Many of the same people who actually attended that party and took their shots out the window now blithely deny that white privilege exists.

Suffice to say, no one was cuffed or shot or hit with a baton when the police showed up that night. They simply broke up the party and stuck around to tell my friend’s dad what had happened.

The point of this stupid story is to show that even responsible gun owners can’t be sure something crazy isn’t going to happen.

(To be continued)

Mr. Bell is a writer, attorney, former president of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council. He writes for www.CityWatchla.com, where this essay originated.