Shooting First, Unanswerable Question Later

The two Buena Park women stood in the yard Tuesday under a hot noonday sun, a long block away from where the shooting occurred the night before and where reporters still milled around.

Is this a street where teens routinely hassle residents? I ask.

No, the women say.

Is this a street where everyone’s a stranger? I ask.

No, they say.

Is this a street where police ignore citizen complaints? I ask.

No.

Was the homeowner who did the shooting known as a troublemaker?

No.

Then why in the world, I ask, would he shoot a teen who police say was, at most, swiping Halloween props from his yard?

That question the women could not answer.

I guess I was looking for a rationale, something to explain why a 17-year-old took a bullet in the head for a petty theft. I suppose I figured that if homeowners on the street were rousted on a nightly basis, that might explain how someone might go off the deep end.

That’s not the way the street works, the women say.

“From down at that end of the block to here,” one says, “this is not a drug street. Not a gang street. No wild teenage aggression. The teens are homebodies. By 9 o’clock, the street has rolled up.”

The women, neither of whom wanted to be identified, refused to pass judgment on the man, saying they didn’t know him or the details of the shooting. But eventually we got around to talking about the unavoidable element: The man obviously got angry and went to get a gun to back up his anger.

Living Under the Gun

Some people want to live in a world like this. They cite figures showing that when private citizens carry guns, crime goes down. Others impugn those statistics.

You know what? I don’t even care if the figures are valid. I don’t want to live in a society that makes it easy for people who can’t control their emotions to have guns.

Yes, that means I glumly accept a criminal element that we can’t totally corral. But a society where everyone could have a gun in their waistband wouldn’t make me feel a bit safer. It would make life scarier, wondering if the otherwise “normal” guy might go off his nut because, let’s say, a teen TP’d his tree or someone cut in front of him in the grocery line.

My vision of a gun-toting society isn’t soothed by instances where homeowners shoot dangerous criminals. Rather, it’s jaded by cases like what happened here on Coral Bell Way in Buena Park--a dead teen and perhaps an otherwise law-abiding citizen who now may face homicide charges because of a moment of pique.

One of the women is especially troubled. That’s because she has a 17-year-old son who she considers a good, solid kid but no angel. It isn’t inconceivable to her that he, under some circumstances, would let off some teenage steam and pull a similar Halloween prank.

Knowing that an angry resident might respond with a .357 Magnum puts the gun-control issue in a whole other realm for her.

“If it was a matter of someone who stole a Halloween decoration, I don’t think I’d pull a gun,” she says, carefully. “I’d be calling the police.”

This is a block so tight that two residents have volunteered their homes as “safe houses,” places where teens can party responsibly. This is a street that has block parties, Fourth of July parties, hordes of trick-or-treaters on Halloween and a free haunted house.

One of the women has lived on the street for 12 years, the other for 43. They’re guessing the teen who was killed, along with a buddy who also was injured in the incident, live on some other street.

‘It’s a Good Street’

Still, they have a hard time explaining how someone could get shot for swiping a Halloween prop.

One of the women--the longtime resident--owns a gun and says she would use it to protect herself or if someone tried to steal her car. The other woman says she can’t imagine firing a gun and fears that any assailant could probably take it away from her in a scuffle.

So goes the debate in America.

I don’t pretend that this shooting in Buena Park is going to change any minds.

“It’s a good street,” one of the women says. “People stick up for each other.”

That will be hard to do in this case. The penalty for swiping a pumpkin is not the death penalty, and we all know it.

In the saddest irony of all, right outside the shooter’s house on the corner stands a Neighborhood Watch sign with this warning:

“We Immediately Report All Suspicious Activities to Our Police Department.”

If only he had.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com