Dear Editor
There has been much discussion about crime committed against rural residents since the Rosetown incident. Personally, I think that was a real amateur attempt at theft. Experienced crooks would have lifted the vehicle hood and had one man on view, or perhaps had him appear to change a tire. When a possible victim stopped, the hidden, armed accomplices would then have jumped out. Apparently they didn鈥檛 have the brains of professional crooks and, it seems, I do!
It is not just the Rosetown area that is infested, it is all over. The crooks are aboriginal, the crooks are white. A crook is a crook is a crook. Some sleep all day and hunt their victims at night, some sleep at night then enter to steal and vandalize while owners are away. Some are crooks who once held jobs, some have never held jobs.
In the 1970s, during the first really large oil boom, the local police detachment went from one to eight policemen. They patrolled rural roads. One man told me most of Canada鈥檚 wanted crooks were hiding out in this oil field. Now the detachment numbers 30 and it hasn鈥檛 helped. The theft and vandalism continues. In the 1990s a farmer, going on holiday, phoned the local detachment to ask if a patrol car would pass the farmstead once in awhile. By then police cars were rarely seen on rural roads. She was met with sarcasm.
A farmer, during that decade, made a trip to his local detachment to say he knew the local punks who had stolen a truck from his neighbour鈥檚 property. He had seen one of them driving it just after it had been stolen. He was shrugged off, ignored.
Now we are usually told by officers 鈥渙h, we鈥檒l never catch them, likely driving a stolen truck.鈥� Then they turn around and tell the property owner, standing in the debris of his vandalized home, that he can be charged because he had not properly stored his antique gun.
Ah yes, the stored guns. By the time the keys are picked up, the gun cabinet unlocked and the ammunition unlocked, the rabid skunk has bitten the dog.
During the Dirty Thirties thousands of good men were thrown out of work by paper (and what is the stock market but paper?). They roamed the countryside. No doubt some chickens and eggs disappeared but by and large those men respected law and order. My mother would tell of these men, usually in pairs, knocking on doors and offering to split wood for a meal. The women were never afraid of them, even though their husbands likely were out in the fields. No doubt any who held lawless thoughts knew the guns were hanging over the back door and if the farmer or his wife decided to get one down ... Now, were the farmer to do so, he would likely be the one charged.
I predicted that in due course the crooks would not knock on the farmhouse door. They would be of their era, this era, and kick in the door, steal and vandalize and ,if the owner gets in the way, look out.
These Dirty Thirties hobos, who were so badly treated by governments of the day, suddenly had jobs, jobs in the Second World War. They had food, they had wages, they had clothing and a bed. (Where did the money come from all of a sudden?)
I鈥檓 not advocating a war to end our crime spree problem, but farmers, ranchers and small town residents are in a war, a war against our way of life, our peace of mind, our wallets.
Maybe if the crooks know there are guns in the combine cabs, the truck cabs, they might think differently.
As for us carrying these weapons, there once was a Quaker, a man of the Peaceful Religion, who heard furtive noises in his farm home one night. He peacefully tiptoed over to peacefully pick up his shotgun, then peacefully tiptoed partway down the stairs. There he saw a man about to collect some family property.
Then he spoke out in his peaceful way,
鈥淔riend, I wouldn鈥檛 hurt thee for the world, but thee are standing where I am about to shoot.鈥�
So there鈥檚 your answer: the crooked person should not be there in the first place.
As for the police saying we shouldn鈥檛 carry guns on our farm property, in the 1970s oil field workers carried up to four guns in the back windows of the half ton trucks they drove and shot at every wild creature they saw, on private farm property or public roads, and the law did nothing. When quad runners and bikers rip up and vandalize a beautiful hill on private land or 鈥減rotected鈥� park land, nothing is done.
But if farmers and ranchers carry guns in their trucks they are almost labelled as hysterical vigilantes.
The police say, 鈥淟et us do our job.鈥� We haven鈥檛 stopped you.
Christine Pike
Waseca
