Then and Now.

Then and Now. A perspective on violence and vigilantism.

In the 1980s, I drove (among other vehicles) a 1972 Buick Skylark GS.
Aside from being a Banker's Hotrod, the car had a sound system which I (budding electronics wizard that I was) tweaked and pumped up until it would rattle the air in your lungs at close range.
My favorite tunes in those days were bands like AC/DC, Jethro Tull, Molly Hatchet, Judas Priest , Jimi Hendrix and others. In other words, early metal. I played it, as every other 17-19 year old did, turned up to 11. If you were stupid enough to tell me it was too loud, I was stupid enough to tell you "you're too old" or a simple"Fuck Off." I was young, inexperienced, angry and had teenage invulnerability. But then, the worst that might have happened to me was that someone would take exception to my taste in music with their fists, and I would of course offer a rebuttal in kind.
In those days, the man who brought even as much as a knife to a fist fight would be considered a cheap punk, or a part of a woman's anatomy.  Fast-Forward to last year. A man went and got a gun and opened fire on a car full of teenage boys because they (no doubt rudely) told him they would not turn their music down. Instead of making a complaint to the police and having the youths ticketed for disturbing the peace, he went and got his gun. Now let's just assume for a moment that those teenagers had been armed with a shotgun, as alleged by Dunn. Let's just say it was so, for the sake of argument. it was the parking lot of a convenience store, which i assume was relatively well lit, as such places are usually islands of light pollution, for the security of the store staff. A shotgun sticking out the car window would have been visible to anyone nearby. Further, a pistol in the hands of Dunn would have been easily visible. Now let's go on and assume that the teens were in fact the "Thugs" Dunn alleges. Given that, why is Mr Dunn still alive ? why did they not fire on him after or while he was obtaining his pistol ? Simple. There was no shotgun. There was no imminent threat.  There was no reasonable threat to Mr Dunn's life. He could have not confronted a carload of "Thugs". He could have stayed in his car and ignored the music. He could have called 911 or the police non-emergency number and asked the police to intervene. He did none of those things. Instead, he got unreasonably angry, demanded that the teenagers turn down their music (a demand I would have refused at their age) and when they refused, he went and got his gun, no doubt to "Teach those uppity boys a lesson". And now 1 young man is dead, 3 more have been traumatized, and Mr Dunn will be going to prison. In 1982 it would have been a fistfight, and the loser would have gone home and put a cold steak on his black eye and got over it. I am disgusted.