Shooting One's Self From the Hip

Not long ago, in a bustling night club in New York City, or in some place like that, a man shot himself in one of his own legs with his own gun.

I had never heard of this man, but that means less than nothing, because apparently everybody else had definitely heard of him -- meaning that he was a famous player for a pro football team.

The bullet didn't hit an artery, and his injury wasn't life-threatening, but the incident nevertheless raised a huge outcry, because he was a famous football player, and, among millions of other expressions of outrage, the Gotham Mayor, a man named Bloomberg, demanded the famous football player's arrest, and that was so done. So now the ballplayer is in some trouble for toting a loaded gun into a busy night club and for shooting himself in his leg, probably while trying to assure somebody, most likely a woman, that he was more "packed" than ordinary, in addition to being one of those most venerated of citizens, a rich and famous pro football player.

One of my best friends similarly shot himself in his leg, while he was even younger and in fact still a teenager. He did it out of the burning need his hormones felt for him to perfect his fast draw.

Though his father, a veterinary, was a highly respected and famous citizen of the community, this incident went unreported, and today is probably remembered only by himself and by one or two of those to whom this man long ago related the even more ancient tale of this miscalculation by his youthful trigger finger.

This is what is meant by the famous truism, "Stuff happens" -- that is, when the consequences are non-lethal and intensely private. --Except that in the present case, the latter result definitely doesn't apply, and that's why it's so dangerous to aspire to being someone in the league of a famous football player.