Arkansas homeowner shoots at teens egging his car, killing 15 year old girl in the process

[regnaD kciN]

86. I didn't...

...but I had it done to me and my family's home -- repeatedly.

You see, I had made the fatal mistake of having to move to a insular community in 5th grade -- and, worse, having moved from Europe, where the standards of behavior were very different, and kids were expected to be polite, respectful, and quiet, to talk through differences instead of fighting them out -- all traits that were anathema to the kids in the new community. To top it off, of course, I had no experience in the U.S. sports that were the focus of the community. It didn't take long before I was ostracized, labeled a "sissy" or "homo," and having groups of kids spend each recess getting together to kick the crap out of me. Of course, I tried fighting back, but I was also lousy at fighting...and, of course, it becomes much harder when it's a whole group against you, and when the school's way of handling the matter was the "even-handed" one of punishing me as well as those who went after me (we were all "fighting," don't you know?). When Halloween came one year, our house was targeted by those same kids; our pumpkins were smashed repeatedly, people would ring the doorbell and run away and, finally, on one of those occasions, when my father opened the door to see who was out there, he was greeted out of the darkness by a volley of eggs that smashed all over our front porch and left a stench for weeks. (I later found out that the assailants were, not the primary bullies who had made my life miserable, but kids at my bus stop, who I thought were friends, but who obviously thought my standing in the community made my family worthy of "harmless practical jokes" like this.)

We had a BB gun in the basement, left by the kid of a friend of my parents who'd stayed with us for a couple of weeks the previous year. However, there was no "ammunition" with it. Had there been, I can't honestly say that I wouldn't have grabbed it and shot in the direction of the kids throwing the eggs. A real gun with live ammunition? Let's just say I'm grateful such an option wasn't available. But bullying -- repeated, intensive, and systematic -- can create its own form of PTSD, and it's not impossible that such was at play here. Perhaps the gunman might have been the victim of the same kind of treatment as his son, and finally snapped? What's tragic is when people in this situation have easy access to a firearm before they can stop and think -- but it's also the height of foolishness to use a "boys will be boys" (sound familiar?) rationalization to think it's O.K. to repeatedly come onto someone's property to vandalize it with impunity, and never expect that there might be consequences...even tragic ones.