Lest We become Tasman Maile

  I consider on Tasman Maile, who was sleeping with his gun when his two-year old picked up the gun and shot himself.
  You may dismiss Maile as a criminal. He was charged with drug distribution and was a restricted person in possession of a fire arm to begin with.
   But, I will remind you he was also a loving father. He was also a normal person, in so many ways. I would quite guess he slept with his gun because he was afraid of the bad guys. He was a practitioner of the Second Amendment as much as anyone.
   I do not say owning guns is wrong. Guns can do good; They can protect you. But, the same, we should see the dangers. If Maile had not had a gun, his child would be alive today. If he did not sleep with the need of a gun at the ready, his child is still toddling about their house. We cannot deny the danger of guns, nor the danger that comes with living by the precept that you keep them in the ready even when you sleep.
   Each person must judge his or her own need for a gun. I would only suggest we not teach everyone that they need guns. For some of us, the danger of owning guns will be greater than the danger that comes with not having them. I believe each person should reflect on the different scenarios that might arise from gun ownership. And, among them: What if someone breaks into your home, and you do have the gun, in what circumstance do you shoot him? Do you shoot everyone who enters?
   Your owning a gun opens the possibility you will use it. People might die as a result of your owning a gun. To administer death on another person, if done wrongfully, is to commit murder. So, it becomes imperative that you mentally lock in your mind conditions that might arise where you will not use the gun.
    Who would kill a two-year-old child? And, who would kill anyone who means them no harm? All God's children have good traits. They can be tender, some being with emotional conditions that make them so. Adults can be as children, tender and in need of care. Yes, nobody should enter your home -- yes, yes, yes. But, it might happen, and it is possible those coming in might mean you no harm, but are just there to take care of what they perceive as their own needs. They lack the good judgment of where they should be and what they should take, even as Maile's son lacked the good judgement of whether to take his dad's gun.
  Maile certainly regrets and rues what happened. After the shooting, he took two guns and threw them in a dumpster. If we go out and buy guns, and then do not use them correctly, the day may come that we also rue owning or using them.
   Tasman probably never thought ahead of the scenario that it could be his own innocent child that might awaken him. To him, the need to sleep with the gun was that it would be bad guys that might come. Even so, when gun owners go to bed, but keep their guns in the ready, they assume that if someone comes, it will be a bad guy.
   And, they leave open a terrible possibility by making that assumption. Just as Maile's precious child ended up getting shot, so might a precious child of God end up getting shot and killed -- and you might be pulling the trigger.