High Noon

The Sheriff walked tall into the town meeting, a gun strapped to his hip. He tells the meeting that strangers have come into our town and our county. They’ve threatened my life. My wife has had to leave town because of the threats and now they’re threatening my elderly parents.

Was this some old Western flick I watched?

No, this is Harney County in Oregon – Last Night.

Yesterday, a county sheriff asked his fellow citizens for help. Sheriff David Ward asked for help because of these strangers that have come to town.

Now, I ask you – Is he just talking to his citizens or all of us? Because we can listen right now or we can wait till later when a whole bunch of heavily armed hooligans march into your town and demand you cooperate in whatever “protest” or “seizure,” they’ve got on their very small minds.

And if you don’t cooperate, they and their friends on the Internet are going to make you. And right smack in the middle of everyone of these tragicomedies is law enforcement – men and women tasked with defending your life and liberty confronted with heavily armed strangers.

What are you going to do?

I’ll tell you what you should do. First, protect and back your law enforcement. Because it is right and because they back you and they’re part of your community. Second, you have a responsibility as a citizen to make sure that justice is served, that people even heavily armed people have to obey the law.

Someday, every one of you may find yourselves in a community where thirty or forty armed men come in and demand you cooperate. And then you get to choose whether you have the guts to back your law enforcement or you’re gonna hide. What’s it going to be?

James Pilant