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From the Middletown Journal. 
Sim Evans column for Nov. 16, 2005
“I like the .38 revolver. It is the gun of choice around the house.”
— Susan Gaylord Buxton, Texas grandmother.
Christopher Lessner, a carefree young Texas lad, was cheerfully speeding along Interstate 30 when the cops pulled him over. This happened near Arlington, Texas, which is near Fort Worth, which is just west of Dallas, which is exactly 235 miles south of Tulsa, Okla.
Anyway, young Christopher quickly outfoxed the cops and made his getaway. He hot-footed it down a creek bottom, dodging the thorn bushes and rattlesnakes. In my younger days, I hung out just north of there, in a little town named Grapevine. Being well-acquainted with the terrain, I can easily sympathize with Christopher’s plight.
At the first opportunity, he abandoned the muck of the creek bed, ran across Northhaven Court, and jumped onto the roof of Granny Buxton’s carport. From there he attempted unsuccessfully to break into the house through an upstairs window.
Quickly realizing he would never find work as a second-story man, he decided on a more direct and down-to-earth approach: He jumped to the ground and kicked in the back door. He should have done that in the first place.
He crept silently through the house, searching for a hidy-hole. Upon discovering a nice closet, he slipped inside, closed the door, and stood silently behind the coat rack. Probably the biggest mistake he had made so far was failing to wipe the mud off his feet before entering the house.
Meanwhile, Granny Buxton found herself unaccountably awake. She called her granddaughter, who reported hearing the tinkling of glass. This called for an investigation, so Granny and the youngster proceeded downstairs.
Granny Buxton, as a matter of Texas etiquette, brought along her .38-caliber revolver, loaded with hollow-points.
The muddy footprints told the tale: There was an intruder in the house.
After quickly eliminating obvious hiding places, Granny headed for the closet, while her little helper dialed 911. She yanked open the closet door, and there stood poor Christopher.
Chris immediately became the recipient of the Texas version of “shock and awe.”
“How dare you enter my house, you bastard!” Then she instructed him to get down on the floor or face the consequences. Christopher, as was his habit, guessed wrong again: He made a lunge for the gun, whereupon Susan Gaylord Buxton shot him in the leg.
“Hey! You shot me!” young Mr. Lessner yelped. Slowly it dawned on him that the old lady wasn’t going to play fair. Hell, she wasn’t even supposed to have a gun!
Realizing the game was fixed, Christopher suddenly scrambled for the door, followed by a rather atypical, but nevertheless determined, 66-year-old grandmother.
He disappeared into the night as Mrs. Buxton fired one last shot for effect and yelled, “Damn! He got away!” The excitement was over.
Incidents such as this are quite commonplace in America. They occur every day, but largely go unnoticed unless there is something quirky or unusual that catches the fancy of the media. In this instance, it was a good-looking 66-year-old grandma, who was willing to talk to anything that resembled a microphone.
The only item really newsworthy in all this was the inexplicable failure of the authorities to charge Buxton with assault and battery, attempted murder, and then pile on a multitude of arcane firearms infractions for good measure. It is yet possible she will be charged with violating the intruder’s civil rights.
Nevertheless, the media coverage was extensive and largely favorable. Granny Buxton was even proclaimed to be “Hero of the Year” by the talking heads on Fox News Channel.
All this laudatory coverage began to stick in the craw of the powerful and well-funded gun-control lobby, so Michael Beard, president of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, stepped forward to thwart the trend.
He offered up for public consumption the following carefully crafted, yet entirely inapplicable statement: “The privatization of public safety is bad policy.” When asked to give an example, he didn’t hesitate. He immediately launched into a tale of two undercover cops, one of whom displayed his gun, causing the other one to shoot him.
How this relates to Granny Buxton’s recent adventure defies logic, so I will leave it, except to say that Beard, along with his entire “national grassroots advocacy organization,” must be taking whatever Alice ingested that pushed her over the edge and through the looking glass.
Sim Evans is a resident of the Franklin area. His e-mail address is [email protected].
Sim Evans column for Nov. 16, 2005
“I like the .38 revolver. It is the gun of choice around the house.”
— Susan Gaylord Buxton, Texas grandmother.
Christopher Lessner, a carefree young Texas lad, was cheerfully speeding along Interstate 30 when the cops pulled him over. This happened near Arlington, Texas, which is near Fort Worth, which is just west of Dallas, which is exactly 235 miles south of Tulsa, Okla.
Anyway, young Christopher quickly outfoxed the cops and made his getaway. He hot-footed it down a creek bottom, dodging the thorn bushes and rattlesnakes. In my younger days, I hung out just north of there, in a little town named Grapevine. Being well-acquainted with the terrain, I can easily sympathize with Christopher’s plight.
At the first opportunity, he abandoned the muck of the creek bed, ran across Northhaven Court, and jumped onto the roof of Granny Buxton’s carport. From there he attempted unsuccessfully to break into the house through an upstairs window.
Quickly realizing he would never find work as a second-story man, he decided on a more direct and down-to-earth approach: He jumped to the ground and kicked in the back door. He should have done that in the first place.
He crept silently through the house, searching for a hidy-hole. Upon discovering a nice closet, he slipped inside, closed the door, and stood silently behind the coat rack. Probably the biggest mistake he had made so far was failing to wipe the mud off his feet before entering the house.
Meanwhile, Granny Buxton found herself unaccountably awake. She called her granddaughter, who reported hearing the tinkling of glass. This called for an investigation, so Granny and the youngster proceeded downstairs.
Granny Buxton, as a matter of Texas etiquette, brought along her .38-caliber revolver, loaded with hollow-points.
The muddy footprints told the tale: There was an intruder in the house.
After quickly eliminating obvious hiding places, Granny headed for the closet, while her little helper dialed 911. She yanked open the closet door, and there stood poor Christopher.
Chris immediately became the recipient of the Texas version of “shock and awe.”
“How dare you enter my house, you bastard!” Then she instructed him to get down on the floor or face the consequences. Christopher, as was his habit, guessed wrong again: He made a lunge for the gun, whereupon Susan Gaylord Buxton shot him in the leg.
“Hey! You shot me!” young Mr. Lessner yelped. Slowly it dawned on him that the old lady wasn’t going to play fair. Hell, she wasn’t even supposed to have a gun!
Realizing the game was fixed, Christopher suddenly scrambled for the door, followed by a rather atypical, but nevertheless determined, 66-year-old grandmother.
He disappeared into the night as Mrs. Buxton fired one last shot for effect and yelled, “Damn! He got away!” The excitement was over.
Incidents such as this are quite commonplace in America. They occur every day, but largely go unnoticed unless there is something quirky or unusual that catches the fancy of the media. In this instance, it was a good-looking 66-year-old grandma, who was willing to talk to anything that resembled a microphone.
The only item really newsworthy in all this was the inexplicable failure of the authorities to charge Buxton with assault and battery, attempted murder, and then pile on a multitude of arcane firearms infractions for good measure. It is yet possible she will be charged with violating the intruder’s civil rights.
Nevertheless, the media coverage was extensive and largely favorable. Granny Buxton was even proclaimed to be “Hero of the Year” by the talking heads on Fox News Channel.
All this laudatory coverage began to stick in the craw of the powerful and well-funded gun-control lobby, so Michael Beard, president of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, stepped forward to thwart the trend.
He offered up for public consumption the following carefully crafted, yet entirely inapplicable statement: “The privatization of public safety is bad policy.” When asked to give an example, he didn’t hesitate. He immediately launched into a tale of two undercover cops, one of whom displayed his gun, causing the other one to shoot him.
How this relates to Granny Buxton’s recent adventure defies logic, so I will leave it, except to say that Beard, along with his entire “national grassroots advocacy organization,” must be taking whatever Alice ingested that pushed her over the edge and through the looking glass.
Sim Evans is a resident of the Franklin area. His e-mail address is [email protected].
