What Would Andy Do?
Remember the beginning of the Andy Griffith Show, Andy and Opie walking down to the fishing hole, Andy in his police uniform, but no gun in sight. In fact, Andy rarely picked up a gun. As fabricated and fantasized as that show was, I long for those days.
I was walking the dogs today, in my own Mayberry town, two on one leash, and trying to keep my legs from getting tangled or letting the dogs go in opposite directions around a tree or fence post. They are well-behaved, but a handful. As we approached the highway, I saw my neighbor, shutting his pickup truck tailgate. We walked up to say hi. I’d seen the police at his unoccupied storage shed a couple months ago and had been meaning to ask him about that, since I had a some fuses and a propane tank stolen around the same time.
“I saw the police here awhile back, did you have something stolen?” I asked him. Then I told him about the theft at my place. He thought for a minute. “No,” he said, “Nothing stolen, but we did have a break-in.” He then recounted a story of finding the screen door bent, but thinking nothing of it, entering the building to prepare for a garage sale that day. He noticed some old flip-flops and thought to himself, “My sister must be crazy to think someone would buy these nasty things.” He noticed the blanket that was over the console TV was gone, and that the always open bathroom door was closed. “Someone was here.” He thought. “Just like the 3 Bears, I said.” “Yes,” he chuckled. Looking around, he pushed on the bathroom door to open it and it pushed back. In that split instance, he realized with shock that someone was in there. We’ve all felt that shock and realization. Fight or flight.
That someone was a barefoot and bedraggled homeless man, who a friend later told him they had seen walking down Highway 71 towards town.
He didn’t fill me in on details, but told me that he called the police. The first to arrive was a young officer from a nearby small town. After questioning the homeless man, he asked my neighbor, “Do you have a permit to carry a weapon?” “No.” my neighbor said. “You should,” the officer continued, “With a forced entry you could have shot him and no one in the world would have convicted you.” The officer turned to the vagrant, “I would have shot you dead just for being here.” Whoa.
My neighbor recounted how the young policeman was “gung-ho” and his attitude is what is wrong with policing today. I agreed. I wrote a song awhile back, “Six Bullets” and it was about an 18 year old kid who was shot six times by Ames police. The point of the song, written from the Father’s remorseful perspective is summed up in the last stanza; “These young cops, trained like killers, like soldiers in a war, they never say I’m sorry, that’s what the bullets are for…”. Is a harsh condemnation, but some truths there. This new breed of soldiers and cops, and soldiers-turned-cops, who see the blue-lines in these modified American flags as an entitlement, not as appreciation, or tribute. Who parade their service as a red badge of courage, unlike the old-timers I’ve known who never speak of their service.
I agreed and explained that I don’t carry a handgun because I might do something stupid that can’t be undone. I don’t trust myself enough to not endanger an innocent, and I don’t think the threat in rural Iowa warrants going armed in everyday society. “Exactly,” he said. Personally, I have given the issue of carrying a weapon serious thought. I own a couple rifles and shotguns and if rabid animal or intruder threaten, I can have a shell in the chamber, and ready to fire in 5–10 seconds. I rarely think of this. This contemporary culture, where guns are easier to buy than a fishing license has created a culture of fear, and self-fulfilling prophecies. More guns = more gun deaths. Makes sense to me.
My logical mind has done the math. The number of households reporting gun possession is slightly down from its modern peak in 1985, but the number of guns per capita is up to more than 1.2 guns for every adult in the US. 350 million guns. The sale of rapid fire assault weapons has exploded, and the US accounts for almost 50% of all civilian held weapons in the world. In fact, here in Iowa, a recent law removes the requirement for a permit to acquire or a permit to carry in order to purchase a handgun or carry a firearm in public places. Anyone can buy and carry a gun the same as buying a candy bar. My personal experience is that out here in the heartland, permits to carry weapons have increased substantially. Many people I know, some responsible, well-intentioned individuals and some of whom shouldn’t even carry a pop-gun, now think nothing of carrying a weapon with them Never-mind that violent crime is a more rare than our local high school sports team winning the state title.
To what can this rise in the quantity of guns per household be attributed? I blame it on a preoccupation with the “what-if” argument. “What if he had been armed?”, “What if he had been violent?” and “What if someone with a permitted gun had been present to stop a crime.” Arguments implanted by the paranoid classism and myths fueled by conservative media in the past, and now present flames fanned, by the dumbing down of both sides of any argument by social media memes. The dumbest of the dumb methods for reducing complex and nuanced situations to the most hateful, lowest common denominator. A friend recently posted a meme, the gist of which was; her paranoid friends talk about impending social collapse and dystopian scenarios, and they always talk about weaponry. Not about food, energy, water, societal governance, and who can fix things, build things and survive. Guns. That is their focus, their solution. This narrative that everything in society has changed for the worse, when in-fact the most substantive changes in recent times are a drop in test scores, lower overall taxes, a decrease in real income, and an increase in the number of guns in the U.S. In short; we are getting dumber, and own more guns while the rich get richer and the poor barely get by.
I am not pro gun, or anti-gun. I recognize them for their limited usefulness and uselessness. I was telling my daughter and her husband the story the other day of how, when I was a young newlywed living out in the country, I kept a loaded .22 rifle under the bed. Insurance. Confidence. But I have noticed one thing; that the act of carrying a gun increases the primitive reflexes of the brain. I recently read a Science Daily article which recounted a study that revealed that carrying a gun influences the person carrying the gun to believe that others are carrying guns. Makes sense to me. This aligns with my theory of “red-neck detente”, where it is assumed that the driver of the car that just cut you off is packing a Glock and will not hesitate to use it in a fit of road-rage if you retaliate with a blast from your horn and the traditional one-fingered saluted that has been the code of the road since Ford put wheels on the road. It is what keeps some would-be criminals from breaking and entering, because of this fear. Is that a good thing? Trust vs. fear. You decide. Cops in schools, metal detectors on downtown streets. I like Andy Griffith’s approach. Be neighbors, talk through problems, agree to disagree, be there for each other, and strangers in need, but when real bad people threaten, be ready to unite and act. Assume the best in others, not the worst.
But I digress, my mind wandering as the dogs and I finish our hot walk. The story of the intruder ends with my neighbor seeing the situation for what it was, a desperate man looking for shelter on a cold spring night. Asked by the aggressive young cop if he wanted to press charges, my neighbor declined to press charges, saying he just wanted the man to get on his way, giving the homeless man the old pair of overalls he had “borrowed”. He even offered him some better footwear. I said I would have done the same, and that is what Andy Griffith would have done. In fact, Andy would have taken him home, cleaned him up and Aunt Bea would have cooked him a chicken dinner.
Man, I long for those days of trust over fear, even if they only really existed in the script of a Hollywood sitcom….
<TP> July 17, 2021
