A while back, a family moved into the house next to mine.
Our neighborhood was a development in a rural area and surrounded by farms; it took about an hour to get to the nearest supermarket.
The neighbors and I helped the new neighbors with whatever they asked and needed.
Seemed like a nice couple, though she was a bit bossy, and he didn’t seem to mind.
Someone apparently mentioned that I have a collection of guns - and THAT started a whole Karen-type reaction out of her, which led to both me and our neighbors keeping a distance from the family.
The requests for assistance fell to zero on my end, though a few neighbors obliged when requested, but definitely without the sense of urgency they once displayed.
You know there was going to be a confrontation coming, and it came while I was sitting on my front porch, enjoying what was left of the sunset.
The wife, Karen - both in name and attitude, though the term Karen came much later - was nervously demanding I keep my guns out of her sight.
Took her about 10 minutes to spit it all out, but that was the gist of it.
When she was about to leave, I quipped that she hadn’t given me a chance to say anything.
She stood there staring, not saying anything (thank God), so I spoke…
“Look, I can appreciate anyone who has a fear of guns, so I'll tell you what I am going to do.
“Should I see anyone snooping around your house, I will leave my guns hidden.
“Instead, I will grab a chair and set it by one of the windows facing your house, call 911, and then sit there until something happens.
“Now that something could be them entering into your garage, stealing stuff out of your garage, breaking into your car, stealing stuff out of your car, whatever.
“But through it all, my guns will remain locked up.
“If they enter your house, whether you are home or not, my guns will remain locked up.
“If I hear screaming coming from your house, they will remain locked up.
“Deal?”
Her perplexed face indicated she wasn’t quite sure what to make of what I just said, and quietly said, “Deal” then took off back to her house.
A few days later, the husband and I were talking, and he said he appreciated the deal I made with his wife.
Then he had a question, “What is the average response time for the police around here anyway?”
“Well,” I said, “that depends on the day and time of day - it can be 20 minutes to a couple of hours if they are on skeleton crew."
He stood here staring at me, looked down for a while, said, “Thank you” and left.
A few minutes later, there was a whole bunch of hollering and yelling going on from that house, and you know what the topic was.
Actually, the whole neighborhood knew what the topic was.
Karen was relentless, but that wasn’t my problem; I didn’t marry her, and I did’t have to live with her.
Afterwards, Karen never glanced in our direction, though I knew she occasionally saw one of us outside.
Her husband came over one night when his wife had apparently been shopping.
To sum up what our conversation was like, he said he would not mind if he got a call if I saw anyone snooping or entering their house, whether they were home or not. And that if I felt a gun was necessary, well, a gun was necessary.
Thankfully, I never had to oblige that request - but the moral of the story is, we are our own defense, not the local police or sheriff.
The police and sheriffs know by the time they get the call that things have already escalated and will only have escalated even more by the time they arrive.
During practices, the average response time I had in retrieving and arming my guns was less than 45 seconds - going from the furthest distance of my property to the nearest storage area, unlocking it, loading the gun, and being ready to head out.
Timing is everything…
So isn’t knowledge and wisdom.