When I was 5, my aunt used a “Saturday Night Special” handgun to shoot my uncle (who was having an affair) and then herself. She died. He survived, severely crippled. Their four teenage children, my only cousins, never recovered from the emotional trauma. The newspaper account said “it all depended on the note” she left for him that he didn’t see before she attacked him. But it didn’t depend on the note. It depended on the gun.