We have a very good small town weekly newspaper in our community. The Northern Light made a very good choice when pressures from the Internet and changes in media consumption had devastating effects on newspapers. Although their action was counter-intuitive it has allowed the newspaper to remain healthy in a changing economy for media. What they did was to drop all subscription fees and deliver a copy each week to every household in their service area. By doing so they increased their circulation which in turn allowed them to increase their ad rates. Part of the lost revenue from subscriber fees has been made up by volunteer support from readers. Each week they print a small add inviting readers to voluntarily send $24 each year to support the newspaper. Many do and those who do are named in one issue each year. The increased circulation and the resulting increase in ad rates more than makes up for the lost revenue from subscriber fees. This allows the newspaper to maintain a small editorial and production staff and a larger circle of correspondents. We have learned to look forward to receiving our mail on Thursdays and reading the newspaper. Most weeks we read everything in the newspaper including the police reports and editorials. I don’t read all of he legal notices, but I understand how they help maintain the presence of the newspaper in our community.

This week’s edition has a front-page article about a landlord who was arrested after allegedly putting a gun to the head of his tenant’s mother. The defendant was released from jail on a cash bond after being charged with second-degree assault with a deadly weapon His arraignment is scheduled for later this month. The victim was involved in a confrontation with the defendant while helping her son move out of the home.

I don’t know any of the details of the incident. People find themselves in conflict over a lot of different things and I suppose that moving out of a home can stir intense emotions. Perhaps the landlord had reason to want the renter to leave. Perhaps the landlord was upset about losing the revenue from the renter. Perhaps there was a dispute over ownership of some of the property being moved. The article in the newspaper doesn’t report any of the reasons for the conflict. It is likely that none of that information is available to the public.

What caught out attention about the article is that the incident happened in our neighborhood, The address of the altercation is a street that intersects with our street just a block from our home. We frequently walk down that street when walking around our neighborhood, which feels to us to be a very safe place. It doesn’t surprise us that there was conflict. People disagree all the time about a wide variety of things. What is surprising and alarming is that the conflict intensified to the use of a deadly weapon.

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that such an event occurred in our neighborhood. The truth is that in the United States nearly every neighborhood has many residents who are armed with deadly force. Guns are so much a part of our culture that they are brandished in all kinds of situations. Weapons that owners claim are present for defense often turn into offensive weapons when conflict arises.

There is nothing new about gun culture. I grew up in a community where nearly every home had guns. We were hunters in my home. We harvested wild deer, antelope, and elk to supplement our family’s diet. Each of the children in our home took a hunter’s safety class when we turned 12. Most of the vehicles parked at our high school had rifles in a rack in them.

I also can remember several times when conflicts arose among my peers in high school. Arguments sometimes accelerated into fist fights. But I never remember anyone using a gun in an attraction. I can’t think of any incident when someone grabbed a gun and pointed it at another person. We all had learned from an early age that you never point a gun at another person, even when you know it is unloaded. In our home the rule was that all ammunition was removed from guns except when in the field hunting. When the gun was brought into our home not only was the ammunition removed, but the ammunition and the bolt that secured the ammunition in the firing chamber were stored in a different place than the weapon. It never occurred to us that we might use a gun against another person for any reason. Guns were tools and dangerous tools that needed to be treated with utmost respect.

That was the way it was in my community when I was growing up. But things are different now. In the first place where I live the majority of the residents do not own firearms. We have no need of guns at our house and we don’t have any. Statistically, however, there are more guns than people in most neighborhoods. There are, I assume, in our neighborhood people who own many guns. There are gun safes stocked with dozens of weapons in homes in our neighborhood. There are loaded handguns in night stands and glove compartments and purses. There are concealed weapons carried by our neighbors. And, when tempers flare, guns are drawn not because they are needed for defense, but because they are used to intimidate others and to get them to comply with the demands of the one brandishing the weapon.

Nowhere in the article about the alleged assault does it say that the victim threatened the accused. Again, I don’t know what happened, only the brief description in the newspaper article. Fortunately the gun was not discharged, but all too often in our communities weapons are discharged in circumstances that do not require the use of deadly force. And weapons are brandished by those who don’t have the training to use them appropriately.

It is a problem not only in our neighborhood but in most neighborhoods of our nation. Fortunately for us, county deputies were able to intervene and enforce the law before someone was injured. Now, we hope we will be able to go back to pursuing our newspaper for articles about the weather, high school sports, school board news and the struggles of small town government. We really don’t need the excitement and drama of neighbors brandishing weapons and holding them to the heads of other people.