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Old January 18, 2013, 03:04 PM   #8
lcpiper
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 15, 2011
Posts: 1,405
People say and do all kinds of things with good intentions.

I was in the Army, a Staff Sergeant, and I had had a stressful morning on a weekend. My uncle was in the hospital, heart trouble, and my mom and dad who were visiting at the time drove over to check on him.

I was home alone with my kids, my wife was working. My mom and dad had brought me a gift, a new red dot sight for my paintball gun.

After my mom and dad drove off to the hospital I decided to get my mind off it for a few, I mounted the scope and took a big cardboard box out back, leaned it against a fence wall, and fired off about 15 shots to get the zero roughed in. I finished shooting, went into my quarters and started cleaning it cause I had busted a paintball in the barrel.

After a few minutes I get a knock on the back door, I answer it and there are 3 MPs standing stacked up at my back door. Now the first was smilling but the other two were both standing "stacked" one behind the other hands on pistols ready for action and they were not smiling.

The lead MP says "Sir, sorry to bother you but a neihbor called in a report of a man shooting a high powered rifle. Can we come in a speak with you about it?"....... All three come in, one speaks on the radio, and 2 more come in from the front door, dudes they even had dogs.

I'll skip the details and move on to highlights, I was very polite and cooporative. I demonstrated my actions. I showed them the high powered rifle, (paintball gun). They asked me to go to the station with them while the big shots there deciding if there was a need to charge me with something. I agreed without any hesitation or resistance. My wife had just got home by now, she was standing on the back porch, two daughters on the hem of her skirt, crying as they haul daddy away.

I have to offer thanks to the MP Sergeant. I had been so cooperative they didn't cuff me, take my ID, and he had me ride up front. MPs here will know what this means. I think my calming the wife for them was really appreciated.

They called my First Sergeant so he could come get me. Because they kept refering to the paintball gun as a paint pellet gun, they associated it with rules on pellet guns which are firearms. Yes, I did tell them that the federal government classified paintball guns as non-firearms, still bureaucracy must prevail. They turned me and my paintball gun over to my First Sergeant and reported the incident as "discharging a prohibited weapon in a prohibited area", which i now have to explain every time my security clearance comes up for renewal.

In the end I was not punished at all, my First Sergeant gave me my paintball gun back, said he was just happy I wasn't drunk beating on my wife. And the neighbor lady came over, brought a small potted plant, and admitted that she had called the MPs, "never thought they would arrest me" she said. She was just worried (that a highly trained combat soldier) would accidentally hit a kid.

By the way, could this have turned out differently if I had had my paintball gun in my hand when I opened the back door?

The best intentions my friends, the best intentions. There are many good people these days trying to "do the right thing".
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Last edited by lcpiper; January 18, 2013 at 03:11 PM.
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