BLACK POWDER, MISSISSIPPI — Barry T. Christensen is a “Southern Man, through and through,” in his own words. He loves fishing and hunting and even though he was recently a victim in a shooting incident at a local bar, he wanted to let the world know that being shot is “no biggie” and that people like him — those shot but not killed — should not be counted in gun violence statistics.
“You always hear libertarians and gun rights activists screaming about how inflated the gun violence numbers are because sometimes they count when people like me are just shot and not killed,” Christensen told our reporter, “and let me tell you, it hurt a lot getting shot. Like, a lot. And I’ve been having these recurring nightmares ever since, so it seems like there’s some psychological damage done when you’re shot, but really, don’t mind me, I’m still alive.”
Christensen said that on Christmas Eve last month, he was at a bar he and his friends frequent quite often, and didn’t expect anything out of the ordinary to happen. “So that’s why when we heard a gunshot, we didn’t think anything of it,” he told us, “this is the south, gun fights happen all the time here. We just don’t talk about it a lot. But anyone who has lived here for any amount of time can tell you how often two good ol’ boys get to jawin’ and one thing leads to another and guns start coming out.”
“I mean, a gun fight in the south is just something you don’t really give two thoughts to when you live here,” Christensen said. “All you have to do is check the police blotter and you’ll see all kinds of shooting incidents, but I agree with the gun rights people,” he told us, “when they say that just because a ton of people are getting shot every day that doesn’t mean we have some kind of major amount of gun violence to deal with, does it?”
Mr. Christensen said that the U.S. should take the “bold stance that just because you’re shot, that doesn’t mean you’re a shooting victim.” He told our interviewer that he doesn’t think when someone has their money stolen from them, unless it was all taken, you “can really call it theft.” Christensen also intimated that he doesn’t think that someone should be considered a victim in a car accident unless they are killed because “it’s just not as bad if you are maimed or disabled for life than if you die and stuff.”
“Those libertarians were all totally right,”Christensen said as he ended the interview with us. He said that his being shot but not dying proved to him that “shooting incidents are totally different if the people shot are killed or just you know horribly wounded, maimed or disfigured” like he was and that the “liberal media should report shootings factually” and “not try to insinuate that people are shooting victims just because they were shot.”
