IRememberWhen

I REMEMBER WHEN
AmericanDaily.com December, 2004
Copyright Steve Pomper, 2004

I remember when... How many times has an old-timer started out a story this way? They hearken back to
a time when they were able to do this or that unmolested by encroaching liberal populations and
government regulation.
We don't realize just how much has changed in too much of America, just how much impact neo-liberal
meddling has had on our country, most keenly felt in more rural areas, and just how much government
tinkers in our lives, until we begin to tell our own, I remember when, stories.
I'm not quite an old fogy yet, well maybe to my kids, but I remember when I was 15 years old back in
1975. My buddies and I would stroll up the street, leap over Broad Brook, and tromp through the woods to
old Underwood's corn field, toting our 22 cal. rifles and 410 gauge shotguns to do a little plinking.
Woods? Corn field? I must have grown up in some rural, gun-culture area right? Perhaps I'm a product
of Texas, West Virginia, or Idaho? Nope, I grew up in the liberal Land of Oz known as western
Massachusetts.
When we were about 14 years old my friends and I attended a hunter safety course one night per week for
several weeks. The local game warden taught the course in the basement of the town hall. Once we
learned respect for, and how to safely use guns, and after passing the course, we were issued FIDs
(firearms Identification Cards), which authorized us to possess 22cal. rifles and shotguns for hunting and
target shooting.
As teenagers we routinely carried our guns openly through the streets of our quiet residential
neighborhood. No heads turned, no eyebrows raised, and no police were called. It was normal, it was
natural, and it was good.
To illustrate the contrast between then and now, I currently live in an equally leftist lair: a small semi-rural
suburb of hyper-liberal Seattle. A few years ago when my youngest son was 15, he and some friends were
up in the woods behind our house playing with paint ball guns.
A paranoid passerby caught a glimpse of the adolescent militia darting from tree to tree; I guess she
thought it was some illegal paramilitary training operation, because she called 911. The local cops
responded, one actually deployed his AR 15 (a civilian semi-automatic version of the M 16 military rifle),
and headed toward the woods, apparently ready for battle. Fortunately a nosey neighbor intercepted the
officer and informed him that they were just kids playing in the woods. The officer chastised the kids for
causing a disturbance. They had been playing legally, on my private property, and they'd done nothing
wrong, but you wouldn't know it to see their long faces following the admonishment. And this occurred pre-
9/11. I told them to forget what he said and assured them that they'd done nothing wrong, and told them to
go back to playing and I'd deal with the officer.
I am a veteran street cop working in a large city, and I saw this as a gross over-reaction, but even cops
aren't immune to the effects of media sensationalism. The media is partially responsible for this tendency
toward minor panic. I'm not going to slam them too hard though; it's not entirely their fault; they are
victims of technological advances. Since the genesis of our nation we've gone from communication by ship,
horseback, and foot, to instant FOX and CNN night-vision, video-phone reports directly from the
battlefield or crime scene; we can almost smell the gunpowder coming through our television sets.
For example, the media take incredibly rare events such as: school shootings, shark attacks, and plane
crashes out of context and gives us the impression that these events occur almost daily. The proper
context is that millions of people, go to school, swim in the ocean, and fly every single day with no more
problems than a pop quiz, sand in their shorts, and airplane food.
Of course no one's going to watch the news if the headlines read: "Mrs. Krumpholtz' fifth-grade class
suffered a surprise quiz today; dozens of unprepared children caught off guard." Or, "Jim Johnson went
for a swim in the Pacific Ocean while vacationing in Maui; he's still suffering the ill-effects of water
stubbornly stuck in his ear." Not the most titillating headlines I agree.
What the media could do is to provide reports that acknowledge this contrast between perception and
context. The headlines could remain the same, but with a bit more context provided in the reporting, like
simply comparing the minuscule number of occurrences with the massive number of folks who are never
affected. John Stossel of ABC News is the only reporter of note who has done this on a consistent basis
for many years on his excellent television shows and in his provocative books.
A more significant portion of the blame goes to our elected and appointed government officials who too
often fail to put liberty in the preeminent position it deserves, and for America to thrive, it requires. Many
politicians and bureaucrats choose to capitalize on these irrational fears and out-of-context reporting.
They fan the fires of public trepidation latch onto issues on which to base their political agendas and to
pursue or retain public office.
In the course of the first half of my lifetime Iâ€™ve watched many personal liberties erode, even as I fight
to preserve them: gun rights, the right to choose whether or not to wear a helmet, or seatbelt, the right to
my own income, rather than seeing more and more of it going to pay for my unproductive neighbor's bills.
Sadly, this is only a fraction of the list.
I shudder to think of what will follow when, in 25 years, my own children begin a story with, I remember
when...¦

STEVE POMPER

AUTHOR

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