LITTLE BOYS, YET ANOTHER ENDANGERED SPECIES

ANARCHY IN FERGUSON, MISSOURI
 (photo from internet)

THANKSGIVING DINNER AT THE VILLAGE INN, CORNUCOPIA

BUDDY PROMISES NOT TO CHEW ON THE NEW GUN SLING

Friday,  8:00 AM.  10 degrees F, wind W, calm with occasional light to moderate gusts.  The sky is cloudy and overcast, with snowflakes the size of a dime falling straight down, and we may get some accumulation.  The humidity is 86% and the barometer, currently at 30.20", is trending down.  I will go out to the deer woods this afternoon.
   We went to the Village Inn in Cornucopia for thanksgiving dinner late yesterday afternoon, with friend Claire as our guest, since she, as we, were unable to spend the holiday with family.  I took Hwy. 13 out, and it was not in good shape, being snow covered and icy.  I didn't wish to drive it in the dark so on returning took Hwy. C to Washburn and thence on Hw. 13 north to Bayfield, about a twelve mile detour but the roads were in much better shape.
   I found a really good new sling for the deer rifle, to replace the one that Buddy chewed up.  This one is made of super tough nylon, and should be dog proof.  It also adjusts much easier than the old, military-style sling that was original to the gun.  Buddy has promised to behave himself.
   I have refrained from commenting on the Ferguson shooting and its aftermath until all the official facts were in and I had a chance to think about them.  The incident was and will continue to be a tragedy for the community, the family of the slain young man, and the officer involved, but it appears to me that in this instance justice was served by not indicting the officer.
   The Grand Jury far predates our American experience, and was established in English common law as a protection against the monarchy harassing its subjects with false arrests and trumped up charges. It is a secret process in order to give protection to the jurors and the witnesses from bribery or retaliation by the authorities or others involved in the case.  The Grand Jury is a protection given to all citizens, regardless of their ethnicity or social standing, and is as valuable a right and freedom today in America as it was many centuries ago in England.
   The riots and looting, not only in Ferguson but elsewhere, make a travesty of our ancient and honorable system of justice, which is the best in the world, despite its shortcomings. I have personally experienced  some of the worst riots and unrest of the sixties and seventies, which destroyed whole neighborhoods and even entire communities, many of which are not yet fully recovered even a half century later.   I believe that arsonists, looters and anarchists are criminals and should be arrested for their actions, and if marshall law is decreed should be shot on sight.
   The other most recent shooting death of a young black boy by police is another mater entirely. Travis Rice, age twelve, was playing with a paint ball gun replica of an automatic pistol in a Cleveland park.  Someone called 911 to report a child with a gun, saying she did not know if it was a real gun or not.
Police responded, and almost immediately shot the boy, who died the next day.  Of course there may be some extenuating circumstances, but the rapidity of the deadly response renders them unlikely or very tenuous.  The officer who shot the boy was twenty-eight years old, perhaps not old enough to be familiar with the actions and foibles of young boys, and probably too old to remember those of his own childhood.  Did anyone bother to try to talk with this child before killing him?  The incident is truly tragic, all the way around.
   Such tragedies are, however, totally predictable and I believe it is our society and how it raises children, particularly boys, that is responsible.  We have taken play away from children, except for violent and realistic video games.  Boys are aggressive, it is in their biological heritage.  I will posit that boys play with toy guns and other make-believe weapons because those are species survival tactics, programmed within them to train them to be warriors  and protectors of their family, their clan, their nation.  A boy male toddler is almost as likely to say "Bang! Bang!" as "Ma!Ma!"
    Ridiculous? Hear me out!  If a boy child doesn't have a toy gun he will make one, even if its is by taking an appropriate bite out of a ham sandwich in the elementary school cafeteria.  If he doesn't have even that he will use his index finger and a cocked thumb.  By trying to stop rather than to properly channel this natural aggression we penalize the child for his innate behavior, creating anger and frustration which can increase dangerously over the years.
   Many of today's children also tragically grow to adulthood without learning the fundamentals of behavior in adult human society.  The Ten Commandments are passé, replaced by sociological pablum which teaches that everyone should be nice to each other but that there is no "right" or "wrong", since all morality is situational and therefore there can be no guilt.   Our society denigrates positive male role models, including husbands and fathers, often with vicious and unfounded personal attacks.  We ban rough play on the playground, and little boys do not learn the results of overly aggressive behavior from their peers. A black eye when bounds are overstepped in play is a good early lesson in civility for a boy.
   We have dumbed down sports, even baseball, to eliminate the possibility of every minor injury, at an age when boys in particular should learn what hurts and why, and that there are rules against certain behavior.  We worry about them falling off a playground merry-go-round, when the real danger is that someone may shoot them dead before dinner time.
   When I was a boy we often played cowboys and Indians.  I usually wanted to be an Indian because I could make believe I was scalping a cowboy with my tomahawk, after shooting him with my bow and arrow. Pretending to be a fierce, proud, wild Indian was a lot of fun, certainly more fun than Sunday School class.
    Alternatively, we played cops and robbers.  Being a robber was also a lot more fun than being a cop, except that the cops always won.  Certainly my mother would have had it no other way, and our childish consciences, nurtured by the Ten Commandments,  steered us in that direction anyway.
   Left to their own play normal children will usually figure out who is the bad guy and who is the good, and learn that there can be honor on both sides of the fight, and that there are such  things as justice and fair play. Of course, a watchful parent should keep an eye on things to be sure they don't get completely out of hand, but it should not be  forgotten that children at play make up their own, usually pretty good, rules.   By the way, I have never harbored any inclination as an adult to shoot a cowboy or anyone else, nor to rob a bank.
   So what do we do with little boys today?  We emasculate them even before puberty, by taking away their natural play, and alternatively allow them to be alone in  darkened rooms, unsupervised, to be force-fed the most violent and obscene video games and TV programs, where there is no difference between good and evil, and no consequences for one's hostile, crude or immoral actions.
   What should we think the reaction is going to be to life's unpleasant circumstances as emotionally crippled, gender confused and morally immature little boys grow into men?  And what will be the reaction of a young police officer when confronted by a boy with a toy gun, if he himself never had one to play cops and robbers with?  The likely result is more playground tragedies, and rendering little boys yet another endangered species.