Life’s a Game of Inches

The dove came as a single, swooping down and in, then back up banking to its left once it realized this was a killing field. My father shouldered his Sweet Sixteen and fired. Darling, the faithful black lab awaited instruction, but I could not. I broke like an untrained puppy, even though he’d told me 15 times “Stay down. Don’t move.” At six years old, without a gun of my own, I was only there to watch and learn. Just then another dove dipped suddenly down from the clouds, drawn by disc-tilled earth and bush hog-sown seed. His eyes pointed upwards, Daddy never saw me disobey him. He shouldered the gun and pulled the trigger just as my head popped into his field of view.

I should be dead. Killed on my first dove hunt. But his instincts and reflexes were quick enough to pull the gun upwards as the shot came out of the barrel, barely missing my head. As Darling trotted out to retrieve the bird, Daddy held me tightly, then gathered his gear.

Forty years later, it’s a story he’s still loath to tell: the day he almost killed his eldest son. I would have never gotten to live and love, experience joy and suffering, battle demons and know Christ… I would have never met my wife.

Years later, around age 12, on my first deer hunt, he carried his custom-made .284 and I his Browning 12 ga. double-gun. In my pocket was a slug and a buckshot. I couldn’t wait to load them up and down a deer. We made our way quietly through big woods. He turned to tell me something and found himself looking straight down two very large barrels.

I recall it was the first time I ever heard my father curse. He said a lot, but as part of his correction I recall in clarion detail, “I will not hunt with a man who points a gun at me. I don’t give a damn if it is unloaded or loaded. And I don’t give a damn who he is.” So, not only had I broken one of the cardinal rules of gun safety: “don’t ever point a gun at something you don’t intend to shoot,” I was more alarmed to think my father would never hunt with me again if I didn’t tighten up.

Four decades later, I own and operate a small shooting preserve along the edge of the Mississippi Delta. Hunting with a mother and a son a couple of years back, we approached a setter standing exquisitely over a single atop a small rise. The mother was on my left, the son on my right. Each had their shooting lanes. The bird flushed directly left over the mother’s head. I turned to watch as she fired and missed. As I marked the bird, the teenager fired from behind me. The force coming out the barrel snapped my head forward. For a moment, all was silent and dark. As I came back around, I checked myself out. No blood, no cuts, no pellets embedded in my skin. Aside from my muffled hearing, I felt fine.  

An inch to the left and he would have killed me. I would have never had my second daughter. I would have never gotten to see both of them laugh and play together.

Had my gun been loaded and I tripped on a stick, I could have killed my father because that’s where my barrel was pointed.

Had his gun been lowered an inch, my father would have killed me.

Sometimes whether a person draws another breath or ceases to exist comes down to an inch.

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I am not a member of the Secret Service and know nothing about their protocols. I accept it is an exceedingly complex job. Likewise, I am not a sniper and can’t imagine being one.

But, what has become clear the last few days is a Secret Service sniper had a man who was pointing a gun at a former president and hundreds of other people in his sights. According to him, his boss ordered him to stand down until the other man fired first. In the meantime, Thomas Crook managed to fire 5 shots, killing Corey Comperatore (a husband and father), injuring two others, and clipping the now-Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump, in the ear as he turned his head. Reports say he missed killing him by about an inch.

One inch, People.

If former Pres. Trump had turned his head back one inch, we would be living radically different lives right now. If Crook had been a slightly better shot, slightly less distracted… I shudder to think.

And all because one man was pointing a loaded gun at another man he intended to kill, while a sniper had him in his sights, fully prepared to stop a tragedy and a national disaster from happening, but was ordered to wait and fire second.

We the People, have the right to know why.

We demand the ugly, unredacted truth in its entirety. Not some Mickey Mouse story about sloped roofs being dangerous. After all, at some point, the 1st amendment must be defended by the 2nd when government branches and bureaucracies obfuscate what is true from the citizens they serve.

By:

G.C. Trout, IV