This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Today is Sunday and many of us will be going to church. Be careful. There are a lot of things at church that can hurt you.

While a variety of these things come to mind — some completely ridiculous and even imaginary — I'm specifically referring to parishioners who feel the need to come to church with a gun.

This is not one of those ridiculous/imaginary things. A week ago in an Altoona, Pa., church some guy accidentally shot a hole in his pocket with a gun. Yeah, that'll wake you up in church.

Exactly why the guy thought he needed a gun in church isn't known. But apparently the safety was off and the trigger caught on something in his pocket. Anyway — BOOM!

Everyone at the service in Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament either dived for cover or thought it was a starter pistol for the Second Coming.

The guy managed to shoot himself in the hand. He gave the gun to another congregant who tried to hide it in a church program. I can appreciate that. Church programs are handy. It's where I normally stick my chewing gum.

You can hide a gun in church, but it's damn impossible to hide the fact that you fired it there. People are going to notice something like that. And they did. The news media learned about it and now the guy is famous.

This isn't the first time this has happened. In 2013, another armed worshiper's gun went off in his pocket inside a Flowood, Miss., church. The only person who got hurt was a woman sitting nearby who got clipped in the head with the ejected cartridge casing.

Given that no one got seriously hurt in these incidents, I would like to go on record as saying that I heartily approve of this defense against church boredom. If not the exact method, then certainly the intent.

The one thing I would caution against however, is the use of firearms in this manner. Only a complete idiot would do that. Pyrotechnics are a much safer way of accomplishing the same thing. You get all of the bang with none of the blood. I know. I've done it.

In the summer of 1970, Bammer and I tossed a military smoke grenade into an LDS service in Holladay. Goofy Grape, if you must know.

Yes, yes, yes, it was a reprehensible thing to do. I'm not at all proud of it, but there are still times of church boredom so excruciating that I can recall the episode with a slight degree of fondness. And I've done worse.

Hotly pursued by several purple-hued and temporarily un-Christ-like members of the ward, we managed to barely escape with our lives. It was an important lesson; all else being equal, terror always trumps rage as a motivator.

Oh, shut up. One of the first things I did before being called on a mission three years later was return to that church and make restitution for the carpet damage. Fortunately by then they had a new bishop.

Never mind all of that. The takeaway from this is that there are more appropriate ways to handle long-winded speakers and insufferable church boredom.

It's why an omniscient Creator saw fit to give us iPads, iPods, earbuds, texting, Bluetooth, tweets, and e-games. Shoot all the guns you want. Just do it reverently and quietly.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley. Find his past columns at http://www.sltrib.com/lifestyle/kirby