Good morning, y’all. I’m happy to report that the parole board weighed my impending death due to toothache, determined that it might qualify as cruel and unusual punishment, and relented in allowing me the freedom to visit my dentist, Dr. Moore Paine, at his office in Blairsville.
Now, Moore’s a good old boy, but his office location bespeaks to his success, or lack there of. Moore’s office is in a strip mall, which is literally between two adult entertainment joints. In fact, my daughter Melody danced for a long time at one of the places. I imagine it’s hard to make ends meet in the adult entertainment biz in a dry county, but the strip joints seem to be doing better than Moore. I reckon most males in these parts would rather see naked women than get their teeth cleaned, go figure. There is room for speculation that Moore’s name may come in to play in his success, or lack there of. Moore is a family name, on his Momma’s side, and in the South we like to pass the burden on down to the next generation if we can. In Mima and Papaw Paine’s defense, who knew Moore was going to be a dentist?
Anyhow, I’m sitting in Moore’s office watching TV, waiting my turn, when I start watching this story out of Atlanta about a policeman that’s been shot while on a call to a house. It is reported that the homeowner has been shot as well. First reports are that the police entered the house based on a 911 call and that the homeowner opened fire resulting in getting himself shot and a policeman shot. From the tone of the story, it seems that we’re now getting the backlash from the “black lives matter” movement and that the networks are really playing up the violence done to cops, while subordinating the violence the cops do to the public. I get it, if you need help, who are you going to call? We need police, but most importantly we need good police.
As this story unfolds, the policeman was shot by friendly fire, the unarmed homeowner was shot while running to hide and the police killed the man’s dog who was trying to protect his owner from intruders. A major cluster. The police didn’t have a warrant, didn’t have probable cause, exigent circumstance or any legal justification for entering the man’s home. They just found an unlocked door and came on in based on a vague 911 call that didn’t even give the address of the house. I try to wrap my mind around a story like this, and I can’t. This crap happens everyday, from the 90 year old Granny shot in her home in Atlanta, to the black fellow shot in the back in North Charleston, and I’m unable to come up with any explanation other than our policemen are scared sh*tless constantly. Nothing else fits.
As a person who has what might be called, an “insider’s” viewpoint of law enforcement, I can tell you for a fact that guns are always part of the problem, not the solution. I can Google statistics for you of countries all over the world that do a better job of not killing each other, either citizen to police, police to citizen, citizen to citizen, or police to police, but if you’re interested you can do that for yourself. Let me just point out that as one of the most armed countries in the world, Americans do a crap job of protecting one another.
My uncle Ebb was a WWII M.P. that continued his career in law enforcement after returning home. He carried a gun, but never used it. He did carry a billy, and later on a baton, which were used as necessary. Having been on the wrong end of a baton I can tell you that they are great “attention getters”. If the suspect is unarmed, there is no greater force needed than a baton in the hands of a well trained officer. The qualifier is unarmed suspect, and I get it, the police are dealing with far too many armed suspects. Maybe the solution to relieving the police’s anxiety is to “outlaw all of the guns, so that only outlaws will have guns”, as the bumper sticker says. Sort of simplifies things for the police doesn’t it? If the suspect has a gun, they’re a criminal. Boom!
I know the argument is more complicated than my simple solution, but I’d like to take the police’s anxiety level down about two hundred notches. Based off of the Atlanta story it’ll keep the police from accidently killing each other. There was a reason Sheriff Taylor only gave Barney Fife one bullet, and Barney had to keep that bullet in his shirt pocket. Think about that while enjoying an oldie.