Thank heavens

NOBODY can blame all the people who filed out of KUAF Friday afternoon headed for home. Fast. There had been a shooting. There was screaming. There was blood. Who wouldn’t be shaken?

Thank heavens nobody was killed. The shooter was the only injured party, having shot himself in the hand by accident. So the authorities say. And we’ll take them at their word. It was only an accident. It was only an accident. It was only an accident. Thank goodness.

But when word started coming out that there had been a shooting on the UofA campus, many of us assumed the worst. And our hearts are still racing.

The police at the University of Arkansas say the student brought the pistol to the radio station in his book bag and was showing it to a friend when the thing went off.

We’ll just assume that the gun was “unloaded” at the time. Most guns that accidentally kill somebody are unloaded, or so it was assumed before thething went off. We knew an older gentleman who spent the greater part of his life limping from a gunshot wound to the knee-a shot from a cousin’s squirrel rifle. A rifle that should have never fired because the cousin was certain the gun was unloaded.

The papers say it’s against UofA policy for guns to be carried onto the campus.

But the papers also note that the radio station is off-campus-across the street from the Fayetteville Public Library. How do you prevent this kind of thing? Besides simple common sense, which, as always, isn’t all that common.

One thing’s for certain. This student and everybody around him are lucky. No matter the wound to the hand. Imagine if somebody had been standing next to the unwilting shooter and the round hit a vital spot.

They say you should make your mistakes early in life, so you can learn from them. Let’s hope this particular lesson is never forgotten.