Clay pigeon: (n) a saucer-shaped piece of baked clay thrown up in the air as a target for shooting.

I have shot a gun. It was delightful. I liked it.

Yet I am completely against killing people. Those two sensations do not have to be at odds.

But saying that “guns don’t kill people” is one of the more ridiculous statements ever made.

Guns will continue to be the main way that people kill each other if they happen to be in the same location when people are angry at one another. Strangling someone to death is not even a close second.

What we should be discussing is how much fun guns are–and also opening up more places where people can go out and safely fire a gun until they get sick of hearing it, shooting it and breaking apart clay pigeons, which, by the way, they will probably miss most of the time. (Perhaps the reason we don’t do this is that so many clay pigeons land safely, and somebody has to go out and pick them up.)

Since guns aren’t going anywhere, we should find ways to enjoy them before the lack of having fun accidentally turns us all into killers. And don’t get pious and say, ‘I would never shoot anyone…”

Each one of us gets angry enough to pull a trigger if our finger happened to be near one. But if we had just finished shooting 125 clay pigeons, we might have put the gun away in the closet, weary of the exercise–and the kickback.