Taking the air of out of pellet guns

    Think about this scenario for a moment. You are driving along on a highway at 65 miles per hour. You innocently try to pass another vehicle. Seconds later, you see a hand gun pointed at you. Then the person holding it starts firing it. What would you do? Accelerate and try to get away from the shooter? Hit the brakes and hope the shooter disappears into the distance? Swerve off the road? Which one of those split second choices might lead to an accident? If there was an accident, would you be injured, or perhaps even killed?
    That’s exactly what happened to a teenager from Connecticut who was driving to Cape Cod on Monday night after inheriting a car from his grandmother. At 6:10 p.m. on Monday, the young man was passing through Marion on I-195 when a stunning incident of road rage could have ended his life. Although the shooter used a pellet gun, the consequences could have been deadly.
    As a reporter I’ve traveled through the area of Route 195 so many times that I feel as if it’s an intimate part of my life. When I first learned of the incident, my instantaneous response was to picture the incident happening to me.
    It seems like a miracle that the victim - a teenager with minimal driving experience – was not injured.
    That the shooter (a teenager from New Bedford) used a pellet gun doesn’t surprise me in the least. Turn on the radio or TV and listen to the news, or pick up a local paper and read the police blotter, and you’ll find increasing cases where air guns, both pellet and BB, are raising havoc. Cars, mailboxes and the windows of homes are routinely being targeted.
    This isn’t a case of kids being kids or summer vacation boredom settling in. Kids aren’t supposed to shoot at moving cars or the windows of somebody’s home. If a pellet from an air gun is shot at close enough range and finds a vulnerable spot, it could kill somebody. Or in the case of the young man driving on the highway, it could kill multiple people if he had lost control of his vehicle.
    Make no mistake - with years of gun-related video game practice under their belts, a lot of these kids would probably qualify as a marksman at a target range.
    Massachusetts’s General Law 269 12B is very specific about the conditions under which a minor can possess an air gun, otherwise referred to as a BB gun or pellet gun. It states:
    "No minor under the age of eighteen shall have an air rifle or so-called BB gun in his possession while in any place to which the public has a right of access unless he is accompanied by an adult or unless he is the holder of a sporting or hunting license and has on his person a permit from the chief of police of the town in which he resides granting him the right of such possession. No person shall discharge a BB shot, pellet or other object from an air rifle or so-called BB gun into, from or across any street, alley, public way or railroad or railway right of way, and no minor under the age of eighteen shall discharge a BB shot, pellet or other object from an air rifle or BB gun unless he is accompanied by an adult or is the holder of a sporting or hunting license. Whoever violates this section shall be punished by a fine of not more than one hundred dollars, and the air rifle or BB gun or other weapon shall be confiscated. Upon a conviction of a violation of this section the air rifle or BB gun or other weapon shall, by the written authority of the court, be forwarded to the colonel of the state police, who may dispose of said article in the same manner as prescribed in section ten."
     There’s a charming movie that appears on cable TV each year at Christmas time. In Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story, set somewhere in the late 40s or early 50s, a boy of elementary school age desperately wants a BB gun for Christmas. His mother reacts with panic and a fear that her son will shoot one of his eyes out. The boy is eventually given the gun. While testing his new gun on a paper target, a BB ricochets back at him and ends up hitting his eye, breaking his glasses.
     It’s a charming story, but that’s all it is. The truth is an air gun can in an instant cause a horrific injury. If you are the parent of a minor who possess an air gun it’s your responsibility to make sure that you child is adhering to the law. In this day and age, it’s not just about putting an eye out. It’s about possibly ending somebody’s life.