good guy with a gun?

I had an encounter with my 'new' neighbor, R, yesterday. They've lived in Frank of the Bountiful Garden's house for about two, two and a half years now (and that property is way more than they can manage). They moved from Katy, a 'small city' engulfed by the big city. This is the guy who's first response to stray or loose dogs in his yard is to shoot them. He's a bit disabled, suffers from lymphedema, can't move very fast and uses a fancy walker so apparently he keeps a gun by his side at all times (but I kinda think he probably did already before moving out here), on disability, wife still works and commutes to the city. He's also one of those people who wears a big cross and tells you to have a 'blessed' day. After the third time he shot at some poor dog I told him don't shoot my dog. Fortunately, so far, he hasn't hit or killed one. Unfortunately those bullets still keep going. I'm glad there is a vacant half acre between us.

There are two reasons dogs (or raccoons or possums or cats feral and otherwise) come into his yard. They have two outdoor cats and so they feed them outdoors in their garage which they keep open so the cats have access which also gives dogs and other critters access and sometimes those critters beat up on his cats. The other reason dogs (and raccoons and possums and hawks) come into their unfenced yard is that last spring they acquired a baker's dozen of baby chicks which have grown into mature egg laying chickens that they do not restrain at all during the day (they do lock them up in a coop at night) so these chickens wander all over the place...into the vacant half acre (I've chased them home more than once from the edge of my property plus trying to train Minnie not to chase them) and into the neighbor's yard on the other side and across the street. At one point during last summer he put up plastic orange mesh fencing, the kind contractors use to cordon off areas, on two sides of the property...my side and the back, the other side neighbor has a fence around his back yard...leaving the front open so the chickens were still able to roam out of their yard.

So yesterday, I took Minnie out so she could run around some in the empty half acre and R was taking down the orange fencing in order to use it to cordon off a large area around the old greenhouse coop for the chickens so he wouldn't have another “butt-hurt neighbor”.

“Oh, yeah?, what happened?” I asked.

The neighbor on the other side took issue with R shooting at his dog that had escaped the fenced yard and I guess was chasing some chickens.

“I didn't know it was his dog”. Really. He didn't recognize the dog he has lived next door to for two years?

Anyway, I supported my other neighbor and told R that guns were not always the solution (something I repeated at least twice more before the conversation ended).

“I have a right to defend my property”, R says a little tightly. And, true, when he first started encountering dogs in his yard (at this time going after the cats) he called the sheriff to ask what his options were and so since there is no animal control in the county, the sheriff told R to just shoot them if they were being a nuisance. I wonder if R told the sheriff he lives in a residential neighborhood and not isolated out in the country. I wonder if it would have mattered to the sheriff).

I agreed, he did, but there were other ways to do that. I also told him this was the country and everybody in this neighborhood probably owned guns but the only time they shot them off was when they were hunting.

“I'm not going argue with you about defending my property,” all up about his 'rights'.

Told him again there were other ways to do that. like fence your fucking yard

“I'm glad I missed,” R said.

“So am I,” I told him, “but that bullet kept going,” something I've said to him in the past when he has told me about shooting at and missing some poor dog that was probably abandoned out here.

After once again telling him guns weren't always the answer I told him I just hoped he never hurt anyone then I paused and told him I wanted to be a good neighbor so I was going in and I scooped up my dog and headed back to the house.

“Have a blessed day”, he says as I walked off.