I know what courage looks like. I saw it on a flight I took six years ago, and only now can I speak of it without tears filling eyes at the memory.

Our flight left the Orlando Airport one Friday morning. But immediately upon take-off, it was clear that something was wrong. The aircraft was bumping(颠簸) up and down. All the experienced travellers, including me, looked around with knowing smiles. If you fly much, you see these things and learn to act calmly about them. However, we did not remain calm for long.

Minutes after we were in the air, our plane began falling quickly. The pilot soon made a serious announcement. “We are having some difficulties,” he said. “Our indicators show that the control system has failed. We will be returning to the Orlando Airport. The flight attendants will prepare you for a bumpy landing. Also, if you look out of the windows, you will see that we are dumping fuel from the airplane. We want to have as little on board as possible in the event of a rough touchdown.” In other words, we were about to crash. Many travellers looked visibly frightened now. No one faces death without fear, I thought.

Then a couple of rows to my left, I heard a still calm voice, a woman’s voice, speaking in an absolutely normal conversational tone. I had to find the source of this voice. All around, people cried. Many screamed. Finally, I saw her. In this chaos, a mother was talking to her child. The woman, in her mid-30s, was staring full into the face of her daughter, who looked to be four years old. The child listened closely, sensing the importance of her mother’s words. The mother’s gaze held the child so fixed that she seemed untouched by the sounds of grief and fear around her.

Finally, I leaned over and by some miracle could hear this soft sure voice with the tone of comfort. Over and over again, the mother said, “I love you so much. Remember, no matter what happens, I love you always.” Fortunately, our landing gear held at last and our touchdown was not a tragedy.

However, the voice I heard that day never faded. That mom showed me what a real hero looks like.

On August 25, an American family’s vacation went terribly wrong. A man, his wife and their three children stopped at a shooting range (靶场) in the southwestern state of Arizona, where people pay to fire guns at targets. Charles Vacca worked for the business, called Bullets and Burgers. He helped the family’s nine-year-old girl shoot a submachine gun called an Uzi. But the girl lost control of the weapon. At least one bullet hit Mr. Vacca in the head. He fell to the ground. Later, he died of his injuries.

No one has been charged with a crime. In fact, the families of both Mr. Vacca and the girl have said they feel very bad for each other. But the event has made Americans talk once again about guns and children. In the United States, federal law bars anyone younger than 18 from owning a handgun. But, many state laws give young people the right to shoot all kinds of guns under certain conditions.

Some Americans say children (like adults) need to learn to shoot a weapon so they can protect themselves. Others say shooting guns is just part of the way they grow up. But “safety” is a word many people use when it comes to children and guns. Last year, the Pew Research Center reported that over one-third of American homes have a gun. So, the argument goes, children could easily see a gun at home, or in the home of a friend or neighbor, and decide to fire it. Indeed, the Nationwide Children’s Hospital says about 1,500 children die every year from a gun accident. Many more are injured.

Laura Cutilletta is a lawyer for the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. She said most U. S. states have firm restrictions on keeping children away from guns in the home. But state laws about children hunting or shooting for fun, such as at a shooting range, are much looser.

In general, most states permit children to hunt or use a gun when an adult is with them. But, Laura Cutilletta notes that even a responsible adult cannot protect a child who is too young to shoot a gun safely. And, she says no one needs to shoot the most powerful guns just for fun.

Harry Burleigh was reported missing on the evening of May 7 by his wife, Stacy, after he failed to return home from a camping trip in the Toketee area. Search and rescue crews from out of the area began looking for Burleigh on the morning of May 8. They found his vehicle near a lower trailhead that leads into Twin Lakes and determined the fisherman may have tried to walk to Twin Lakes to fish before heading home. His worried wife made signs and left food along the trails in hopes he would find them.

On May 16，they had a big break when searchers found a fishing box and makeshift（临 的） shelter. “They left him a note and lighter and told him to make a fire and they would be back in to get him tomorrow,” Stacey wrote on Facebook, “It took the team another 6 hours to get out.”

A week later, on May 23, rescuers discovered’ a second makeshift shelter southwest of the original one. The search crews called out to Burleigh who responded back. He was found to be 'walking and complaining of minor pain, but was in stable condition. Burleigh was examined at the hospital and reunited with his family that evening. “This wàs the outcome that we all have been looking for in this case,” said Douglas County Sheriff's Sgt. Brad O’Dell, “The Sheriff's Office wants to thank everyone who was involved in this mission.”

O’Dell said temperatures in the area got down into the 20s, and even snowed. “He told the searchers yesterday that he kept doing this 'one day at a time, one step at a time for love for his family and everything else,” O’Dell said, “So that mindset, that winning mindset, I think played a big role.”