As a young child in Queens, N.Y. and then Long Island, guns were not an issue for me. Sure, there's crime in the city and sure some of it involved guns, but the average family didn't keep a firearm. It's hard to get a permit in New York, and for good reason -- a gunshot in an apartment building, even for self-defense, could have disastrous results for neighbors. The buildings and dwellings are just too close together.

On more affluent Long Island people who owned guns generally kept them at shooting ranges and hunting lodges. Crime wasn't so bad there and the need for self-protection not a major issue.

Then my parents got a divorced and a series of events landed my little New York butt in Bernalillo, New Mexico, a town just north of Albuquerque near the half-way mark between the Duke city and Santa Fe. Bernalillo, especially when I lived there, is a country town. Cows, horses, fields of alfalfa, beaten up pick-up trucks and, yes-- guns.

My step-father owns guns and that (along with his fascination for model trains and fighter planes) was our first connection as father and son. I started shooting at a young age, around when I was 10. During my early teens I shot guns at targets, tin cans and discarded refrigerators maybe three times a year. I fired an AK-47 assault rifle and a .45 automatic handgun with hollow point bullets (which kind of explode in their targets). Those are probably the deadliest weapons I held.

Then I got busy doing theater and newspaper and since I had already bonded with my stepfather kind of left me to my own devices. I graduated high school and went to college. When I was 19 my high school girlfriend who I was still sleeping (she was my first and only at that point) with and was still in love with although I was technically not her boyfriend informed me that she was going to commit suicide. To cut a long and rather harrowing story short, she made good on her promise, using a .32 caliber pistol with hollow point bullets which her father kept in his van.

It was the first time I'd ever seen a gun kill anything. It's the only time, in fact. I have never shot an animal (never even shot at one) and I have certainly never shot at a person, but I have seen a person destroyed by a gun, The blood pool is larger than you'd think, and slippery. She shot herself in the temple and the bullet embedded itself inside her. There was no "brains across the room" like in the movies -- just a long bruise, a death mask, across her face marking the path of the bullet. Her eyes were bugged and inhuman. The 911 operator told me to perform CPR but I couldn't bring my face that close to hers. I remember thinking (but never saying) that they would fix her in the ambulance, and I remember one of the cops, not his face but his voice, somehow picking up my hope and telling me gently but matter-of-factly "She is gone, I want you to know--" before instructing me that I would be free to leave the house before any of her family came home, if I didn't want to confront them, just now. I left.

So, I've seen two sides of guns. The fun side. The Pop and son out shooting side and the death side. I can't say that a law preventing her dad from keeping a pistol in the van would have saved her life -- she would have found a way to die. I can't say that the government should take my Dad's guns away -- he hasn't done anything wrong, after all. Part of me wants them banned and part of me wants a free gun market.

I’m like the country that way, I guess. I’m even more like the country in that I have a large middle that wants reasonable gun control but not a total ban. That pistol shouldn't have been in her father's van. We don't need concealed weapons in cars, purses and sport coats. We do need background checks at gun stores, pawn shops, gun shows, and the internet. Actually, we shouldn't sell guns over the internet. It's a bad idea. Pistols should come with trigger locks. Gun should be registered so they can be traced if stolen.

Second amendment freaks need to get over the idea that gun owners will protect the country from invasion or government tyranny. They need to stop preparing for fantasy wars. Gun-ban advocates need to stop trying to mother everybody, they need to leave people alone. We need immediate compromises which will make the country safer while preserving freedom.

When Michael Maiello was a kid he always thought he'd own a gun as an adult. Now he's pretty sure he won't.