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January 26, 2007
Man With A Gun, Oh no ! !
By Jack Lee
Durham, Ca., it's 7:30 a.m. on the 26th of January in this sleepy little town,. Most of the streets don't have sidewalks and it's still legal to keep chickens in the back yard. It's a safe bet that a majority of the men folk are hunters and/or fishermen.
So in this backdrop of rural Americana, a lady sees a white male adult walking in the morning sun beside a paved road and she freaks out because of what he is carrying. (I suspect she must be from San Francisco or New York City, given what happens next. ) Anyway, she spots this guy casually carrying a shotgun with one hand. People do that all the time in the rural areas. But, the ripples of paranoia have spread across the land, thanks to the anti-gun crowd that exploits a any illegal gun related event, so this lady filled with concern calls 9-1-1, "Man with a gun...and he's near a school!"
(By the way, everything in Durham is near THE school. It's a very small town.)
The Sheriff's Office dispatches two marked units to investigate...probably their whole day shift. NO, it's not necessarily a crime to carry an unloaded shotgun in plain sight within this community. There would have to be more to it to be illegal, for instance, brandishing the weapon in a threatening manner, but he wasn't, he was just carrying it. This man was not slinking around the school yard or anywhere, he was just walking...in plain sight...in daylight, but this otherwise non-event was still of great concern for this lady who called in a "man with a gun" and police have to assume it must be a threat to someone, somehow since it's been reported.
Next, the school is notified by the S.O. and the classrooms are locked down, but panic is avoided despite the chilling effect this has on everyone. The deputies arrive quickly and streets are searched, but the man with the "evil shotgun" is no where to be found? Hmmmm...he couldn't have gotten very far as deputies were on the scene in just 2 minutes. Well, the whole thing ended in a big nothing.
This GUN event still made it on the KPAY morning news and as I hear it being broadcast, I think, "Good thing it wasn't an unattended suitcase left near the post office. Then the bomb squad would have to be called, the streets blocked off, traffic detoured, businesses closed and then the suitcase exploded by an EOD team using a water cannon (resulting in a one ruined suit case filled with old wet clothes)." NO, I am not kidding, that actually happened and recently, these are the times we live in, it's a different world.
I dunno if there's really a point to this story, unless it's to pose the question, are we becoming a bunch of Chicken Littles? I always figured life was about living with minor risks, like the small risk that may result from our rights under the 2nd Ammendment to keep and bear arms. So, I never was too concerned to see a guy with a long gun (that would be a shotgun or rifle for you non-NRA types), but then I grew up in a more sensible era when most kids used to plink with a .22 and hunt with a .410 and nobody gave it a second thought. I did it and all of my friends did it and somehow we all survived, but like I said it's a different world today, isn't it?
Posted by Post Scripts at January 26, 2007 12:17 PM
Comments
When I was growing up I had exposure to firearms from a very early age. Along with that exposure, I was taught a very healthy resect for firearms and their purpose.
It seems that the majority of unintennded shootings take place not from over exposure to firearms, but from a lack of it.
Posted by: Nick Freitas at January 27, 2007 09:45 AM