Until Last Night I Had Forgot I Got Shot In The Head Once

[ThomWV]

I want to recount this little story just to show how much our nation has changed in a very short time.

I had forgot all about this; the time I got shot in the head, until just last night when something that came on the TV reminded me of it. Now this is the god's honest truth. On a cool evening during the early summer of 1965 I was walking down the boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland with a young lady who was a friend of mine when a ricochet from a shooting gallery hit me in the forehead. Click, bank, Ouch! For those who don't know it back in the day you could actually pick up a rifle out in public and plink away at some minuscule target with the possibility of winning some cheap toy that was likely as not to have been made in Japan. The bullets that were fired were actually .22's. Those things have been around forever but they used to come in some very small capacity cartridges; there were 22-longs, 22-shorts, and then there was an even smaller version called a 22-cap. It was the smallest that they used in the shooting galleries and it was the bounce from one of them that hit me. It stung like hell, and as I recall a single little trickle of blood ran down to about my nose before it quit. I said very bad words to the poor guy behind the booth. He apologized like hell and gave me a rag to wipe off my face. Then we went on about our walk.

That was then, this is now.

Imagine, guns in public. Imagine not having the first thought of a lawsuit. My how the times have changed. Probably for the better I guess. Sometimes I dunno.

[MonkeyFunk]

1. My high school had a rifle team

and a rifle range beneath the school.

Every year, I'd try out for the team, just because it was a chance go to downstairs and shoot a rifle. I almost made the team one year!

On match days, the team would carry their rifles (in bags) around the school with them.

[bean fidhleir]

6. I was on our school's, and the advisor (my civics teacher) made me the armorer

So I got to carry the rifles down to the range each week, about a 3 block walk (he would bring them back). Those buggers were HEAVY, slung over my shoulders. I always had to sit and rest for half an hour before I could shoot.

The interesting part is that cops would go by, give me a smile and thumbs up, men would tease me ("Aren't there any boys you can get to do that?"), and I doubt it ever crossed anyone's mind to be suspicious or worried. This was in the mid-'50s.

[Elidor]

2. A strike from a spent cartridge can hurt worse than actually being shot

Countless soldiers have writhed in agony from bullets that bounce off of them. And while you didn't think to sue, it certainly was a hazard. The next time, someone might have been seriously injured. "You'll put an eye out with that thing!"

[WWolf]

3. I don't know whats more remarkable

That you got shot in the head
Or that you forgot about it

[ThomWV]

4. Couldn't tell you the young ladies name either

All I can remember about her is that she was very short. Probably a good thing, she was walking on the side toward the gallery. Oh, and I made a mistake on the year, it was 1966. Before the year ended I would find myself in the Army and a year after it happened I would be in Viet Nam for the first tour. There was a lot going on in my young life, this little experience just sort of fell by the wayside.

[billybob537]

5. Musta caused dain bramadge

[virginia mountainman]

7. In the early 1990's

a large number of us, in my rural high school, especially around hunting season kept rifles and shotguns in our cars. It was never an issue. No one ever used one improperly. Heck, I kept a loaded (rounds in the magazine, not in the chamber) .303 Lee Enfield in the back seat of my 87 Shelby Charger, during deer season, and when Turkey's where in season, it was a pump shotgun.

Heck, i even bought a small handgun from my 9th grade Science teacher....He brought it to school, I paid him for it, put it in my backpack (along with what was left of a box of ammo) and took it home on the bus..

Never even thought twice about it...

Now we get letters from the schools, reminding us, that water pistols on beach day, where STRICTLY "Verboten" due to the "zero tolorance" policy.