According to a report in today’s Ann Arbor News, a snow plow operator working outside the Valley Ranch apartments in Pittsfield Township this morning was shot at by a 39-year-old male. The shooter, it would appear, didn’t like the snow plow operator’s decision to deposit snow, which had fallen in the parking lot of the apartment complex during the previous night’s storm, behind his car.
I don’t know the shooter’s situation. As a child, he may have seen his parents buried alive by a rogue snow plow operator, and the site of this man plowing the parking lot in front of his home may have triggered something. More likely, though, he was just already having a really shitty day, as he stepped outside his front door, late for work, to discover his car being walled off by tons of newly-plowed snow. Having left a house of screaming kids this morning at 7:00 AM to frantically dig my car out, fearful of missing an 8:00 AM meeting, I can only imagine how much it would suck to have walked outside, in the freezing cold, to find an oblivious snow plow operator constructing an impenetrable wall of ice and snow around my car. I get it. I could easily see how that could push a person over the edge. But, even so, I can’t imagine a scenario where I’d attempt murder over it.
I can’t imagine a scenario in which, before talking to the snow plow driver, I’d pull out a gun, take aim at his head, and pull the trigger. Even on my worst day, I think I’d at least attempt to bang on the window of the snow plow, and demand that the snow be moved away from my car, before resorting to murder. (Maybe we should start teaching a “Steps Before Murder” class in our public school, showing people the progression of activities that one needs to advance through before employing deadly force. I mean, whatever happened to slapping?)
I have to wonder if, when people are not only allowed, but encouraged, to walk around with concealed weapons, we’re making events like this more and more likely. The recent news story about the fellow in Florida who shot and killed a young man over the volume at which he chose to listen to his music, I think, illustrates that pretty well. Minus a gun, that disagreement would have played out much differently. And I suspect the same is try of what happened in the Township earlier today.
How many stories do we have to hear about people being shot in movie theaters over their cell phone use, and snow plow operators being shot at, before we take a sober look around us at the system we’ve allowed the fearful little men of the NRA to construct, and start pushing back? As much as a certain vocal minority in this country might wish that they were born in the old west, when “real men” settled their differences with guns, we’ve advanced beyond that. We live in a nation of laws… And, if you’re too scared to leave your house without a gun, maybe you should stay inside.
[The image above comes from the coverage in the Ann Arbor News. To see all of the photos, click the link at the top of the page.]
18 Comments
The guy moved the snow, didn’t he?
Snow plows are socialist.
Also, if the snow plow operator had a rifle across his lap, this never would have happened.
Does anyone remember the story from a few years ago about the guy in the Township who was listening to his police scanner, heard that there was a high speed chase coming his way, and got ready with his gun to shoot at the car as it passed his home?
The Simpsons episode where Homer joins the NRA is disturbingly close to reality.
Don’t mess with the brave frontiersmen of the Michigan townships. They left the comforts of city life behind to homestead in suburban apartment complexes up to 10 miles away. Some say that they abhor public services simply because of the taxes they incur, but it is really because public services are an affront to their self sufficient machismo self images. This man likely resorted to gun violence because he was unnerved by his own inadequacy, having not had the wherewithal to have purchased the Dodge Ram 4by4 that a pioneer of his statue requires to bust through snowdrifts & unplowed roads.
What kind of sissy crybaby calls the cops? The bullet missed him by several inches. H should have just accepted the fact that he’d been beaten, dug out the guy’s car, and crawled home. This is how men settle their differences.
I like the idea of popularizing a saying like, “Slap First. Shoot Second.”
“If you’re too scared to leave your house without a gun, maybe you should stay inside.”
The wild west thing is a myth. They weren’t real fond of concealed weapons back then either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunfight_at_the_O.K._Corral#Tom_McLaury.27s_concealed_weapon
Before the laws were adapted to allow concealed carry, the apartment complex in Ypsi that I lived in had numerous complaints of tow truck drivers being shot at, and having guns pulled on them for just doing their job. Also, on one occassion, someone had a giant hole blown through their door by a 12 gauge shotgun.
I read that story today, but missed the part where they said that the perpetrator was legally carrying a gun. I do understand your frustration though….
ah yes, He WAS a CCW permit holder. What an idiot…
I’m not excusing his behavior, but is it possible that the guy asked the man to stop and he just kept dumping snow on his wife’s car?
“As a child, he may have seen his parents buried alive by a rogue snow plow operator, and the site of this man plowing the parking lot in front of his home may have triggered something.”
Triggered something! Ha! Brilliant!
I think this probably belongs here.
“Last fall, the Family Research Council’s Jerry Boykin spoke at the WallBuilders’ Pro-Family Legislators Conference where he declared that when Jesus comes back, he’ll do so carrying an AR-15 assault rifle. As Boykin explained once before, Jesus was a tough guy and real “man’s man,” and that is because he is a warrior who will come back covered in the blood of his enemies and carrying an assault rifle.”
http://www.alternet.org/print/news-amp-politics/conservative-leader-jesus-will-come-back-ar-15
Interesting.
sight not site, Mark
geez
My great grandparents didn’t have snow plows, and they aren’t mentioned in the constitution. If I saw one on my street, I’d shoot at it too.