My boyfriend keeps a shotgun on his headboard. Actually, it’s not his gun — he’s keeping it for a friend. It’s a hunting gun, not meant to harm anyone, and it’s not even loaded. But I don’t like it. No matter how careful you are with guns, accidents happen.

How many stories have you heard regarding accidental shootings? How many times have you heard about the parent who accidentally shot his or her child? How about the child who didn’t know what he was doing and shot the parent, the brother, the sister?

No matter how responsible gun owners are or how much training they have, their guns could still end up in the wrong hands.

I recently ran across a copy of the July 6, 1998 issue of Time magazine, “The gun in America 1998,” which reinforced my feelings on this issue. I saw some shocking pictures — one was of a nice-looking man holding a baby with one hand and a gun with the other. What are these people thinking?

According to the special report, “Still under the gun,” every year, one in 12 high school students are hurt or threatened with a weapon. Think of the school massacres in Jonesboro, Ark., and elsewhere last year. The perpetrators were kids — kids who never should have had access to guns.

Sure, some kids can handle guns, but I would venture to say most can’t. That means parents should think twice about owning a gun.

It is our constitutional right to carry firearms, but some people have abused and lost that right. The problem is, if anyone has access to guns, everyone has access to guns, even people who aren’t supposed to have them.

In Time, I read about a man whose son was killed by a gang member. The gang member got his gun from a “straw buyer” — a man who purchased 40 guns, legally, and then sold them to people who couldn’t buy guns legally.

Who needs 40 guns? Wasn’t it obvious what was going on? People say we need guns to protect ourselves from the people who gets guns illegally, for self-defense.

Two guns don’t cancel each other out. Statistics have shown that if you own a gun, you are more likely to be shot than if you don’t have one. Do you want to be afflicted with the “shoot first, ask questions later” mode of thinking? How would you feel if you accidentally shot a person? I don’t want to find out.

Neither of my parents know how to shoot a gun. Somehow, we always managed without one.

Baby pig “freaks” were clubbed in the head. Raccoons were caught in traps with the aid of strawberry syrup and then clubbed. When a cow needed to be put out of her misery, we called the vet.

I’m sure clubbing animals over the head is not a pleasant task, but I guess my parents felt they’d rather take on that task than risk someone getting shot. My mom has said several times it’s a good thing she doesn’t have access to a gun because she would have surely killed someone by now. She was half-joking when she said it, but she was also half-serious. Yes, guns have saved many an innocent person’s life. They have also been used to kill many an innocent person, however.

Until our government adopts stricter gun control laws, it’s a personal choice. You won’t ever find a gun in my house.

Catherine Conover is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Mapleton. She is features editor of the Daily.