The Minneapolis-St Paul Star-Tribune reports this morning of a story involving a police officer and his cousin (the former on duty in plain clothes and the other, his cousin, a community police liaison) having a delightful cup of coffee.
As two armed men ominously emerged from the bathroom sporting the standard accoutrement of robbers (ski masks), Sgt. Bill Blake was crouched and ready to fire. His cousin reports he shouted "Police" to which the robbers responded by pointing their weapons at Sgt. Bill Blake.
Wyatt Earp never wanted any trouble. Just a clean town with legal gambling. And he was a hero because of his modesty (this prior to his revenge-fueled rampage after the OK Coral). Sgt. Bill Blake is no exception as he fired two rounds. One managed to shattered the gun in one robber's hand (this evidenced by fragments of the firearm found near the bar).
They fled. Sgt. Bill Blake chased them, only to return without them and in ultimate Samaritan fashion, make sure those in the restaurant were okay. One of the robbers actually turned himself in with minor injuries afterward.
Honestly, I still find it difficult to fathom that we allow free and open gun sales in this country. But there's a paradox here inescapable to either Democrat or Republican: what if the government decided to revoke your right to own one? Yes, we read stories more and less tragic than this one involving firearms, perhaps daily.
Arguably, we'd be reading such stories regardless of gun laws and ownership restrictions, but simply involving knives and other crude weapons (I read many of the English-language papers when abroad--it's just good daily reading yarn). By that same token, do we really know that? Just look to our cultural predecessors across the Atlantic. Their firearm laws are far more conservative than our laws. Yet there seems to be some nut who either owns an arsenal of freedom and the British authorities are removing the cache by the armful after arresting the bloke or an individual loses control over good sense and inhibition, locates a gun and rampages through a small town.
We're not alone in our problems. But when my younger brother in college is being asked why America is so violent and deadly by his Spanish language partner across the sea, he politely replies (in broken Spanish) that he has never seen a gun fired in person much less seen anyone shot.
My fear is not getting shot so much as it is when the government is at my front door saying "we repealed the Second Amendment. Hand over all your firearms." Though I won't have any to give them, I will certainly be terrified when the only people in our country with guns are government officials. I've seen that too. It's called Latin America.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment