"Active Shooter" by David Sedaris

This one is a little change of pace.  It's by David Sedaris, author, performer, humorist and storyteller.  Sedaris' amusing tales often veer off onto unexpected tangents.  He's the creator of the hilarious Christmas monologue "Six to Eight Black Men."  

This piece is a bit longer than your average blog post and may not be suitable for those who can only digest 140-character tweet-shrieks from the illiterate Orange Bloviator.  Don't be one of those people.

Remember, reading is good for you and a sign of basic intelligence.  You can read the entire article by clicking the link.  It's a good one.  Some excerpts follow.
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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/active-shooter 

It was spring, and my sister Lisa and I were in her toy-size car, riding from the airport in Greensboro, North Carolina, to her house in Winston-Salem.  We came upon a billboard for a firing range called ProShots.

"I think we should go to that place and shoot guns," said Lisa.

And so it was that the following afternoon we arrived for our appointment at the firing range.  My shooting experience was limited to air rifles.  Lisa had no experience whatsoever.

After a 45-minute gun safety class, Lisa stood ramrod straight with a loaded Glock in her hand.  Her first bullet hit the target -- a life-size outline of a man -- and missed the bull's-eye of his heart by an inch at most.  Where did that come from? I wondered.

The bullet I fired was so off the mark, my only hope was that my enemy would laugh himself to death.

I thought of a couple I know in Texas, Tom and Randy.  One night, late, an escaped mental patient stole a car, drove randomly to their house and pounded on the door.  "I know you've got my mother in there!" he shouted crazily.  "You're holding her hostage, you bastard!"

As the door started to come off its hinges, Tom got his pistol and fired through the door.  The man was hit in the neck, but the shot didn't kill him.  Enraged, the escaped mental patient got back behind the wheel and drove into Tom and Randy's house.

"I'm the pacifist in this relationship," said Randy.  "Never held a gun in my life, but there I was, while this madman was driving past my chest of drawers, shouting, 'Kill him!'"

As Tom aimed his gun, the guy passed out from blood loss, and not long afterward the police showed up.  By then, the door was hanging by a thread and had bullet holes in it, and there was a stolen car at the foot of the bed.  This, I thought, was exactly why some people buy guns.

I am not concerned that an escaped psychopath is going to break down my front door in the middle of the night.  Things like that clearly happen, but I'd just as soon prepare by having a back door.