It’s an old saying, and a relevant one. Human beings, for some reason, have a tendency to take for granted the things with which they are most familiar. Take for instance, your spouse. Perhaps that is why so many marriages end in failure. When two people take each other for granted the marriage is doomed. Another example of this phenomenon is easy to spot on the road. Look at that lady putting on her makeup. She is taking for granted her driving skills and those of every single vehicle around her. She is taking for granted that the road will not suddenly end in a wall or under a semi truck. And she is asking for an accident by doing so.
The contempt that people sometimes develop for the routine things in their life is not limited to lowly private citizens. And that is how we come to stories like this one, where a public servant almost shoots himself with a loaded weapon.
A firearms instructor in southern Massachusetts has been assigned to other duties after his gun accidentally went off while he was teaching a class on weapons safety. Officials say the Glock handgun discharged while Maj. Donald Lamar was demonstrating to Bristol County deputy sheriffs how to safely holster the weapon.
Much like the DEA agent who shot himself in the foot in front of a class full of gubmint students just after proclaiming he was the only one in the room qualified to have a gun, it is ironic that those most qualified to handle weapons often make the dumbest mistakes while doing so.
We are so paranoid and blindly afraid of firearms in this nation in 2008. That national condition is largely the result of classroom conditioning by government officials, who, also ironically, often hold armed private citizens in contempt. Anyone can shoot him or herself in the foot. Anyone can crash a car. Anyone can wear a uniform. Anyone can preach from a pulpit.
If you plan on doing either of the latter two, I suggest you follow your own rules and teachings religiously if you expect the rest of us not to laugh at you. Talk to your spouse as if they might walk out the door never to return and they’ll probably stay. Drive your car like you are about to have an accident and you probably won’t. Handle your firearm like it could accidentally discharge at any moment and it probably never will.
When we take anything for granted in life we are just asking for trouble.