This past week, my son, who is not a big football fan, asked me the following question:
"Dad, did Plaxico Burress shoot himself in the thigh?"
Yes, I said.
"Why did the New York Post call him a Giant Idiot?"
Well, said I, he plays for the Giants. ("I know that, dad.") And he did something really stupid.
"What did he do, dad?"
At this point I had a decision to make. Where do I go with this? I could have avoided the issue I guess, but that seemed pointless since he clearly had heard about the incident at school. Just to make sure, I asked. And yes, kids at school were talking about Quick Draw Burress, the Giant Idiot.
So what did I say? I told him that Plaxico was carrying a gun, which wasn't a great idea but that wasn't the main problem. The main problem was that he was carrying a gun and it went off. Luckily it only hit him, but it could have hit someone else. And the best way to avoid that would be to not have a gun at all.
"Why did he have a gun, dad?"
I don't know, kiddo. Some people think it makes them safer. That if something happened, they would be protected. The thing is, in this case, if Plaxico couldn't even take the gun out of his pocket without it going off accidentally, what makes him think he would be able to use it to defend himself? Plus, if he's afraid that something will happen to him when he goes out, maybe he should stay home. I think I threw in something about how Burress is a good football player, but probably not a very smart guy, since its hard to play football after you shoot yourself in the thigh. If memory serves, that got a laugh.
This isn't exactly what I said, but I think it's pretty close. What I didn't say to my son, but I will say here, is that I think it's really dumb to have guns around children. Plaxico has a 2 year old child at home. This isn't a case of someone trying to protect their home. This is a handgun. It's also an unlicensed handgun, which is a crime. I think I said something about the fact that Plaxico had a gun that he "wasn't supposed to have", without getting into mandatory sentencing laws or other legalities.
I understand that a lot of sports figures feel like targets. But everyone, no matter what they do for a living, have to be responsible. Someone could have gotten hurt. I know it's easy to say that, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." But if there's no gun, the likelihood of someone getting hit with a bullet decreases exponentially.
When I was a kid, I don't think I ever asked my mother these kinds of questions. Reggie Jackson may have been an egomaniac and a womanizer, but as far as I know, he never shot anyone. Or himself.
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