Growing up, Paula was afraid of guns and never wanted one in her home.
She recounts when an abstract belief reified itself; when the safety projected by modernity dissipated and revealed itself to be illusory.
Protection was always one phone call away, she didn’t expect that to change.
Besides, frequent crime, particularly frequent violent crime, is typically relegated to certain acceptable areas a good distance from “safe places”, distance measured geographically and economically. Sure, there is the occasional outlier like we’ve seen in Bedford, NH, but for the most part, the violence is contained within the statistical curve.
When I say acceptable areas, I mean acceptable to those running the cities, towns, boroughs, counties etc. and those who elect them–the general public. They usually denounce the regularly scheduled atrocity that consumes those caught in the areas with a, “never again” trailed by an, “amen” and a period of silence. After which they head out of the pews or candlelit public squares and into the doldrums of a cookie cutter landscaped Mundania and indulge themselves in the day’s tedium feeling completely safe.
This isn’t to say that, Paula, or any of us for that matter, is directly culpable for the despair that lingers in those acceptable areas, but there is a human tendency to accept such despair and displeasure more readily when we’re not directly affected by it. Sometimes many of use get lulled into a false reality that consists only of what we observe first hand and deceive ourselves into not thinking of much else.
Until we have to.
Violence is difficult to cage, and its statistical outlier may plot itself right on your doorstep… or so Paula imagined during the Boston “shelter-in-place” edict issued from on high from those behind an army of 10,000 heavily armed forces.
At one point, someone tweeted this:
I’m halfway across the country but if someone knocked on my door right now I’d pee my pants.A moment of levity during a very serious, very scary night.
It was the moment I evolved on guns — the moment my support for the 2nd Amendment went from abstract to concrete.Boston-area residents were told to “shelter-in-place.”
“We’re asking people to shelter in place. In other words, to stay indoors with their doors locked and not to open their door for anyone other than a properly identified law enforcement officer,” said Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick in a press conference in Watertown. “Please understand we have an armed and dangerous person(s) still at large and police actively pursuing every lead in this active emergency event. Please be patient and use common sense until this person(s) are apprehended.”
I realized at that moment that the police cannot protect me from the Dzhokhar Tsarnaevs of the world.
The best they can do is tell me to lock myself in my home while they search for the bad guy. Though the residents of Watertown (and the surrounding greater-Boston area) were held in a state of near-martial law, the best most of them could do was huddle in their homes, hoping the police would take their 3 a.m. call and come running to rescue them before the terrorist killed them.
….
As I listened to the police scanner during the Boston manhunt, I wasn’t thinking about “police all over the place” in the “personal security guard” …
Instead, I imagined a mother huddled in the nursery with her baby. Her husband is out of town and she is also listening to the police scanner, praying the terrorist doesn’t burst through her back door.
I imagined an 85-year-old World War II veteran living alone. He fought the Nazis on foot across Europe and his government just instructed him to “shelter-in-place.” He turns out the lights in his home and hunches over his radio waiting for updates though the long night.
I wondered if they could protect themselves if the worst happened.
In the middle of that night listening to the Boston police scanner, I evolved.
I realized right then that if I were holed up in my house while a cold-blooded terrorist roamed my neighborhood, I wouldn’t want to be a sitting duck with only a deadbolt lock between me and an armed intruder. There are not enough police and they cannot come to my rescue quickly enough. They carry guns to protect themselves, not me. I knew at that instant if Dzhokhar Tsarnaev showed up at my door while I was “sheltered-in-place” and aimed a gun at my head and only one of us would live, I could pull the trigger.
If it can happen in Watertown and other “safe areas”, can it happen in yours? Would you want to be one of the huddled ducks she describes and hope you’ll be safe? Me neither.
Read all of Paula Bolyard’s article here. It’s good.