Imagine you're having dinner with your husband and young child when the window next to your dining room table breaks. Your first thought because you live in Evergreen is that an elk is sparring with his reflection in the window. But then you find the BB shot on the floor of your dining room and you wonder what is wrong with this world.
Am I in denial about life in Evergreen? How can you be shot at in your home in the mountain suburbs of Colorado? Unless you have a questionable cook in the house, you shouldn't have to worry about your family's safety at the dining room table. But police believe a drive-by shooting with a rapid fire BB gun is exactly what happened last weekend to a family on Douglas Park Road.
Sadly, two windows were broken. Yet even worse, our neighborhood's tranquil way of life was shattered. This summer's egg throwing, while not acceptable, was more of an inconvenience than a threat to our neighborhood safety. Even having our mail stolen a year or two ago, while a federal offense and creepy, was not in the same ballpark as shooting guns at homes.
"But it's only a BB gun," some might say. According to a study by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, from June 1, 1992, through May 31, 1993, an estimated 32,997 people were treated for BB and pellet gun-related injuries.
BB guns are not toys. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission,
BB guns can kill and there are generally four deaths a year attributed to BB or pellet guns. Thankfully the harm done this time was to a house and not a person. But the shooter took a heck of a chance by deliberately firing a gun at a house in a heavily populated neighborhood with lots of kids around.
Folks, please check your windows and immediately report damage from guns to the police. I hope, yet find it hard to believe, this was an isolated incident.
If you have any type of gun in your home, keep it unloaded and locked separate from the ammunition. Any gun, including BB and pellet guns should only be used with adult supervision.
For more information, these sites discuss kids and guns and gun safety:
http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/yourchild/guns.htm
http://www.kidshealth.org/kid/watch/house/gun_safety.html