The hyperbole in this thread verges on the lunatic at times justifying this madman's actions.
I live in an area where something like the imposition of new rules would change the way I live and have some suggest I just move.
I live on the property I grew up on surrounded by neighbors I grew up with. The only fences are around the fields to keep goats or the neighbors horses from roaming. The cock crows at the chicken yard in the morning. There's no municipal water or sewer so we're all on wells and have septic systems. The road is a narrow winding blacktop cut through the woods that used to be the old mail coach road in the 1800s. We shoot on the property. My sister is burried here.
Before some of you start to play "Deliverance" in your minds or envision some wide open farm country, this isolated rural pocket is also within 20 minutes of a major (20k+ students) university and several colleges and 45 minutes from a national laboratory. It's 15 minutes from an airport with direct flights to NY, Atlanta, DC, etc. and 5 minutes from some of the best restaurants and grocery in the region. It sits on the eastern shore of the largest lake in the area with a county park on the opposite shore that the sun sets over (no development). It is also in the fastest growing area of the county with track mansions springing up in the former cattle fields like weeds.
Friends that live in some of these tract mansion development tell me that their neighbors comment with concern about the shooting they hear going on "over there" (they don't really know where we are since they just know there's a big chunk of land without any subdivision on it). My friends laugh and tell them that they're safer with me shooting than they are in their own homes because "it's an Oak Ridge Safety Engineer" who's fanatical about safety.
As change has taken place I've seen more and more adjacent farms become subdivisions. Some day one of the properties that isolate my small 3 acres and the neighbors' larger property will be sold because the property will become too valuable our friend's living on it to resist the endless offers to buy. Some day "city water" and sewer will come close enough that the county will tell us they're putting lines in for us. Some day the county will decide to upgrade the road to a 2 lane road wide enough for 2 suvs to pass each other. Some day we'll get annexed or the county will start telling me I can't do X or I can't do Y. Some day they'll tell me I can't use my pistol range where I teach people to shoot for free.
Move? Go where "they" don't tell folks what to do? I'll consult my sister as the sun sets across the lake pointing a dagger of fire at my dock while the goats play in the pasture and the heron flies low across the water to its nest. I know this, she'd tell me not to do anything like that deranged madman in Kirkwood did.
Life is change and sometimes change is painful, but to walk into someplace and start shooting people (random and specific) over encroaching change from rural to suburban, and the rules that come with it, is the act of a lunatic who can't gauge the threat.
I live in an area where something like the imposition of new rules would change the way I live and have some suggest I just move.
I live on the property I grew up on surrounded by neighbors I grew up with. The only fences are around the fields to keep goats or the neighbors horses from roaming. The cock crows at the chicken yard in the morning. There's no municipal water or sewer so we're all on wells and have septic systems. The road is a narrow winding blacktop cut through the woods that used to be the old mail coach road in the 1800s. We shoot on the property. My sister is burried here.
Before some of you start to play "Deliverance" in your minds or envision some wide open farm country, this isolated rural pocket is also within 20 minutes of a major (20k+ students) university and several colleges and 45 minutes from a national laboratory. It's 15 minutes from an airport with direct flights to NY, Atlanta, DC, etc. and 5 minutes from some of the best restaurants and grocery in the region. It sits on the eastern shore of the largest lake in the area with a county park on the opposite shore that the sun sets over (no development). It is also in the fastest growing area of the county with track mansions springing up in the former cattle fields like weeds.
Friends that live in some of these tract mansion development tell me that their neighbors comment with concern about the shooting they hear going on "over there" (they don't really know where we are since they just know there's a big chunk of land without any subdivision on it). My friends laugh and tell them that they're safer with me shooting than they are in their own homes because "it's an Oak Ridge Safety Engineer" who's fanatical about safety.
As change has taken place I've seen more and more adjacent farms become subdivisions. Some day one of the properties that isolate my small 3 acres and the neighbors' larger property will be sold because the property will become too valuable our friend's living on it to resist the endless offers to buy. Some day "city water" and sewer will come close enough that the county will tell us they're putting lines in for us. Some day the county will decide to upgrade the road to a 2 lane road wide enough for 2 suvs to pass each other. Some day we'll get annexed or the county will start telling me I can't do X or I can't do Y. Some day they'll tell me I can't use my pistol range where I teach people to shoot for free.
Move? Go where "they" don't tell folks what to do? I'll consult my sister as the sun sets across the lake pointing a dagger of fire at my dock while the goats play in the pasture and the heron flies low across the water to its nest. I know this, she'd tell me not to do anything like that deranged madman in Kirkwood did.
Life is change and sometimes change is painful, but to walk into someplace and start shooting people (random and specific) over encroaching change from rural to suburban, and the rules that come with it, is the act of a lunatic who can't gauge the threat.
