Danville Elderly Couple Robbed at Their Doorstep, Man Takes Gun to School Board Meeting

First I read this story, from WSET:

There was a Danville elderly couple, who were going home. They were met by a teenage boy with a gun, who proceeded to rob them, while three other teenage boys in the bushes and watched. They were beaten. The lady had her glasses broken and several hundred dollars were taken. Is it not a shame that you can not feel safe on your own door step?

My neighborhood in Lynchburg is much the same. There are frequent break ins and thefts, and if you leave something outside unattended, consider you just made a gift. People here do not call the police anymore, the sad fact is that we are a low priority in the great scheme of crime enforcement. I don't fault the police, they are over burdened and calloused by the frequency of crime.

My house has been broken in three times, now I have made efforts, some may consider extradinary to deter those that may think of breaking in. I now have bars on all my windows, and double locks on my door. I also have a video cam, that the neighbors can see pointed out my window. And I have video cams inside, that start recording when set off by motion when I am away, and the file gets sent to a remote site.

The first time I was burglarized, began my learning curve. My possessions are not much, but they are valuable to me. I reported this to police, and they did make some efforts to find the thief.

But they were point blank honest to me, they could only spend so much time in the investigation. And I was determined to find out who robbed me, and I did. I had my suspicions. So the next time when trash was due to be picked up, I picked up the trash of the suspected neighbor and found remnants of my possessions in their garbage.

This, however went nowhere. The police did not regard this as enough evidence to get a conviction. My only consolation is that at some future date, this neighbor will be caught and go to jail for some future crime.

I have lived most of my life without having a crime done to me. I realized to get burglarized in your home, more than the theft of your possessions, you feel your privacy infringed upon, you feel naked. Its a mental wake up call. But, then something happened several weeks later.

I was the victim of a brutal crime.

Picture with me being the victim of a strong armed robbery, as you are getting in your car leaving from work, and you are beaten so severely that you wonder if you are going to survive. And , by chance have the present of mine to scream for help. And this is the only thing that deters the assault, and maybe saves your life. You are grateful that you burned the image of such a hateful person in your mind.

And though, as you lay on the ground and he gives one last parting effort a kick, aimed at your head as hard as he can, he hits your throat instead. You make it to a phone, dial 911 but you can't talk your voice has gone. And you stand there near naked, because he has ripped your clothes off your body, tearing blue jeans down the seam.

Sometime, I will tell you the whole story about this.

But I am digressing, and I want to tell you about this opinion article that I read in the News and Advance. It is about a man who went to a school board meeting with a gun strapped to his side. The opinion writer takes the position that his action was inappropriate. I tend to agree with him, why would you need a gun at a school board meeting? Even though, he had a permit, a visible gun can be intimidating, making anyone who would voice an opposing view to use caution.
But in a way I understand. And contray to the opinion of the News and Advance, it is time to realize that we live in a dangerous world, and it can come to your doorstep as an eldery couple, in Danville just found out.