Carrying

During my Junior High teenage years we lived in a small city in Southern Utah. For my 14th birthday, my folks gave me a .22 caliber rifle. All of my friends had .22’s and almost every Saturday a few of us would get together and go rabbit hunting north of town. We also did a lot of target practice. If one of us shot a cottontail rabbit, we would take it home to eat. Jack Rabbits were plentiful and we shot a lot of them but just left them there.

One of my friends Dad removed the fireing pin from a .32 caliber pistol and we played with it during our “Cops and Robbers” fantasies. The gun had a scabbard so you could strap it on to your waist. We took turns keeping the gun for a week at a time then passing it along to the next guy. One Sunday evening as my parents and I were preparing to go the Sacrament Meeting, they left to do some errand and said they would meet me in church. As I was leaving to go to Sacrament Meeting, a friend who had the .32 pistol came by to give it to me as it was my turn to have it for a week. Instead of taking the pistol and scabbard in the house, I just strapped it on, concealed under my suit coat and went on my way to Sacrament Meeting. I didn’t tell anyone that I had the gun and took my place with the other boys my age on the Deacons row. I passed the Sacrament with the pistol strapped to my waist! Later, I told my Mom and she just about died at the thought of what I had done. To put it mildly I got a good tongue lashing. After that week, I never had the pistol again.

Contrast what I just wrote about and think what would happen if a young, stupid boy did such a thing in this day and age even if joking. Even if the gun had been a cap pistol, he’d wind up in the Slammer and probably put on probation for a year or so. How times have changed.