Hi again, folks. Well, under the category “Just About The Time I Truly Think I Have Seen It All,” here in Washington State, a Mason County commissioner has come up with a rather “interesting” response to proposed cuts in the law enforcement budget. He’s urging the locals to arm themselves.
"It certainly is 'open season,'" said Tim Sheldon, chairman of the Mason County Commission. "There is no bag limit on criminals who try a home invasion in our communities."
Okay. There are also only around 50,000 people in Mason County, Commissioner. This is not Charles Bronson and New York City, where despite the fact that lots of criminals have guns, not very many of them are members of the NRA and even fewer of them spend time at the range polishing their proficiency in these regards.
This is the Pacific Northwest, the rural Pacific Northwest. Are we thinking pickup trucks and gun racks yet? Are we thinking people who work in the woods and go deer hunting every year? Are we thinking the American Legion and the VFW? Are we thinking male and female children who are taught to shoot about the time kids in Texas are taught to ride horses?
I started out in a mountain community and grew up in law enforcement. I covered crime and the courts for awhile as a newspaper reporter and editor. Burglary is a crime of stealth, not of confrontation. The majority of those who commit it are NOT armed. They don’t want to shoot anyone because that’s a lot more time in prison if they’re caught. They certainly do not want people shooting at them. Sometimes the result of that can be irreversibly life-changing. Most burglars don’t have a death wish.
Again, in looking at the numbers and the geography, I’m thinking that with a population that small and the whole county off the main north-sound (Interstate 5) corridor and not even close to any big highways headed east, any residential or commercial business establishment break-ins will likely be committed by someone somebody else in Mason County knows.
It comes as some relief that the Mason County law enforcement establishment is not real thrilled with the idea of an escalation of arms among the local citizenry. They expect the good people of their jurisdictions to remain law-abiding and to exercise appropriate vigilance, knowing that poverty ~ and particularly the sudden variety of it ~ can often motivate people to do things they would never, under any other circumstances, contemplate.
It means the citizens of Mason County will also be doing all those other things that responsible people in communities small and large have always done during hard times. They will not fill their personal arms lockers with all manner of deadly hardware and ammunition and thunder about like a herd of hard-charging Rambos.
They will look out for one another and do as much as they can to eliminate the need to steal in the first place. That’s how it’s done out here and, I suspect, elsewhere.
"It certainly is 'open season,'" said Tim Sheldon, chairman of the Mason County Commission. "There is no bag limit on criminals who try a home invasion in our communities."
Okay. There are also only around 50,000 people in Mason County, Commissioner. This is not Charles Bronson and New York City, where despite the fact that lots of criminals have guns, not very many of them are members of the NRA and even fewer of them spend time at the range polishing their proficiency in these regards.
This is the Pacific Northwest, the rural Pacific Northwest. Are we thinking pickup trucks and gun racks yet? Are we thinking people who work in the woods and go deer hunting every year? Are we thinking the American Legion and the VFW? Are we thinking male and female children who are taught to shoot about the time kids in Texas are taught to ride horses?
I started out in a mountain community and grew up in law enforcement. I covered crime and the courts for awhile as a newspaper reporter and editor. Burglary is a crime of stealth, not of confrontation. The majority of those who commit it are NOT armed. They don’t want to shoot anyone because that’s a lot more time in prison if they’re caught. They certainly do not want people shooting at them. Sometimes the result of that can be irreversibly life-changing. Most burglars don’t have a death wish.
Again, in looking at the numbers and the geography, I’m thinking that with a population that small and the whole county off the main north-sound (Interstate 5) corridor and not even close to any big highways headed east, any residential or commercial business establishment break-ins will likely be committed by someone somebody else in Mason County knows.
It comes as some relief that the Mason County law enforcement establishment is not real thrilled with the idea of an escalation of arms among the local citizenry. They expect the good people of their jurisdictions to remain law-abiding and to exercise appropriate vigilance, knowing that poverty ~ and particularly the sudden variety of it ~ can often motivate people to do things they would never, under any other circumstances, contemplate.
It means the citizens of Mason County will also be doing all those other things that responsible people in communities small and large have always done during hard times. They will not fill their personal arms lockers with all manner of deadly hardware and ammunition and thunder about like a herd of hard-charging Rambos.
They will look out for one another and do as much as they can to eliminate the need to steal in the first place. That’s how it’s done out here and, I suspect, elsewhere.
No comments:
Post a Comment