A little over a week ago, I wrote about how local police in Pennsylvania were putting out a warning to the community about a game popular among high school seniors where they take on the role of assassins and shoot each other with water guns. People have been mistaken for real bad guys in this game, and real consequences have ensued because of it.
Unfortunately, while the police in Pennsylvania issued the warning, it was some folks in Louisiana who probably needed to hear it.
No one was hurt, but it could have been much worse.
High school seniors ran from gunshots fired into the ground Saturday night (April 4) on West Louisiana Avenue, while playing an ill-advised game where students chase each other with water guns, according to Kenner Police Chief Keith Conley.
...
The students, whom Conley said are not from Kenner, were hiding in a woman’s driveway when she called police, scared for her life. Conley says the woman also called her son, who showed up and discharged his firearm into the ground, scaring the teens.
Police cited the six players and the man who fired his gun.
“We can’t just look the other way and ... be thankful that we had better results than (we) could have had,” Conley said. “I think it was handled correctly, and I think that the message has to get out that this is not a game. This is Russian roulette,” Conley said.
This piece denigrates the game, which I guess is understandable considering what almost happened, but I think the problem isn't the game itself. It's the kids who can't seem to use some critical thinking to understand that if they're skulking about in neighborhoods in the middle of the night to squirt someone with water, they also look like people skulking about in a neighborhood in the middle of the night looking to do something far more nefarious than play a silly game.
Honestly, if my mother were still alive and called me saying there were people being suspicious and scaring the crap out of her, I'd rush to her house, too. I wouldn't shoot into the ground, mostly because I'd worry about there being a rock just under the surface and causing more problems, but I'd damn sure not be super nice about the whole thing.
I'm sincerely glad that no one was hurt, because this could have been much worse.
Last year, a high school student in Florida was shot by an off-duty law enforcement officer while playing the game. Again, the behavior while playing this game is exactly like the behavior someone trying to do something criminal would exhibit, and while we can argue until we're blue in the face about who is at fault, the truth is that there's not much use if someone dies, which has happened.
When my son played this game in college, it was restricted to the campus, and everyone knew what was up. They also didn't play games by trying to make their water guns look less like water guns, so that helped. Frankly, it looked like fun.
But when it spills out into the community like this, people who aren't part of it are likely to see something and not realize what's going on.
Don't be stupid is a rule for life, and acting like bad guys in neighborhoods is the epitome of being stupid.
Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
Help us continue to report on and expose the Democrats’ gun control policies and schemes. Join Bearing Arms VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member