Shootout at the Bent Creek Coral

I hate guns.  Well I don't hate them, I just don't care for them much.  I have gone shooting but killing is simply not my thing and shooting at a target for hours loses its fun after about 15 minutes.   I grew up in a gun culture, how could Alaska be anything else?  When I was 15 one of my friends had a semi-automatic rifle.  Another friend had a pistol with a laser site.  We used to go out and shoot at cans from time to time.  I have never owned a working gun and really I don't have much desire to change that.  I think in my mind guns represent an expression of power over another person.  It is an artificial expression of power supported by a tool that can take life in an instant. Sure I suppose I would feel differently if I lived on the frontier.  If I had a cabin in the mountains I might even buy a shotgun. 

In my professional life I am surrounded by guns.  I quietly work around more weapons than most people might see in their lifetimes.  Still, these guns are all tools of the trade.  A police officer and a federal agent have a need for the expression of power.  It is ironic that very few of these people are "gun nuts" per say.  Of course there are exceptions, some who have their own private arsenals.  The vast majority however wear their side arms as simple tools as important to them as my pencil, data bases and charting programs are to me. 

I am not completely against guns.  There is side of me that wishes none existed yet reality dictates a different truth.  I do however think that owning one requires a high degree of responsibility in both understanding the weapon and keeping it safe.  Frankly it is not a responsibility I want to have. 

A few years back a friend in Florida gave my son a BB gun.  My friend used it to nail squirrels that were eating his garden.  Some day archaeologists will discover the corpses of the little buggers buried together and theorize it was a place squirrels went to die.  The gun sat largely unnoticed until the other day when my 15 year old having obtained a large cash of BBs from another friend decided to take it out and shoot at targets.  The back side of my house is all wooded and I really didn't give it much thought.  He had been schooled somewhat in gun safety and I made assumptions in retrospect I should not have.

The following day he came into the garage with the thing, taped up the stock and walked out.  I didn't ask where he was going or what he was doing.   A few hours later he was engaged with a posse out in front of my house.  The group consisted of a seventeen year old boy and girl, my son and a 14 year old.  All of them have grown up together and all are rapidly moving away from their childhoods and into adulthood.  A scant six years before they were simply playing with sticks and homemade bows.  

I ventured out to a friends house to pick up a pedal assembly for my car and when I returned my wife told me I had missed the excitement.  She commenced explaining how there had been a complaint of four kids and a gun in the neighborhood and in response a police officer had shown up.  After being reassured by my son that they were not shooting the gun, only holding it he left.  An hour later he re-appeared as my wife's story was drawing to a close.  It appears a window had been shattered in a cul-de-sac just down the street from my home.  The officer wanted to speak to the boy who had assured to him no BBs were being fired. 

Furious but controlled I called my son and demanded he return immediately.  Moments later I was grouped together with three of the four parents involved learning how each child had taken turns shooting BBs down the street.  They were shooting in the air the kids tried to reassure me.  They couldn't hit a window, that would be impossible.  Obviously none of them had learned what the word trajectory meant.  Details began to flow in like CNN covering a disaster.  The window hit and completely shattered, was a foot from a baby's crib.  Thank God it had not broken and fallen inward.  Another house next door had been hit.  Wait, one more.  A total of three windows in three different houses had holes in them. 

With visions of our children being dragged off in handcuffs each parent took turns laying into the group of kids.  Irresponsible, punishment, stupidity... words seemed to flow in all direction.  Even another neighbor not involved chimed in.  Finally it was the officers turn who after explaining that none of the victims wanted to press charges if their windows were replaced took his turn to leave a mark on the kids, his most poignant words directed at my son.

I think one of the worst things in the world about being a parent is when you have to go, hat in hand and apologize to another for the stupidity of your own child.  It is degrading, it is humiliating and generally unpleasant.  The parental council agreed to all pay for the actions of our children by replacing the windows and spending the next weeks making our kids pay us back in some way. 

There are times when as a parent you can't help but utter the phrase, "what the hell were you thinking?"  As I mentally processed the event it became crystal clear in my mind how for some reason in their developing minds thinking about an outcome to an action is difficult at best.  It is almost a skill.  While the malady is especially cancerous in the mind of a teenager it never goes away completely.  I even failed in not thinking about the consequence of allowing him to walk off with the BB gun. 

A week has past and I continue to contemplate the incident.   A couple days ago I was working on my VW Beetle.  My son was helping me and I asked him to install a stop plate under the floor pedals while I held them back.  He became exasperated as he fumbled with the plate and was unable to attach it.  "What is wrong?" I asked him. 

"You do it Pop, I can't do it." 

I took a look and slowly started to compute what was going wrong and why the thing wouldn't fit.  I knew from experience once that was figured out I could look for a solution.  My father is brilliant at this process sometimes taking so long as he draws endless diagrams and spends days in contemplation. In fact this process and his thoroughness can frustrate the hell out of those he is working with.  I realized that this was an ability I was slowly teaching myself.  It was something I had to work with my son more on.

When in engaged in any situation it is easy not to think about the possible consequences of an action.  Still we must stand back and think about them.  We don't need to be obsessed with them but at least give them a look.  In school and life we spend so much time dictating to our children what will happen if they do something we never teach them how to figure it out for themselves.  I am still not sure how to completely do this but as our youth are given cars to drive, guns to keep and alcohol to drink I can't help but think there has got to be methods to make them think more.  

We spend so much time worrying about our children, smothering them, guarding them, lecturing them and harassing them, we have to spend more time helping to find within themselves the ability to understand the consequence of action.  If we don't, we risk them ending up like Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton. 

Now back to my car and well, "God dammit, why won't this thing fit?"