7 Times

After reading Erica's post and the Article on the 13 year old boy who was shot for caring around a fake fire arm, I begin to look at myself kind of scared, yet relieved. Because when I was around the age of 7-8 years old I too ran around with a fake gun, (like most younger boys would) but my gun was a old rifle that did look very real if you looked at it. Me and a friend of mine at the time were outside playing with our guns, and as we played we thought as a joke to hind behind parked cars and as soon as we saw a car pass by we would jump out and aim our fake guns at the cars passing, well from a innocent impulse of fun turned into a very serious situation, because the driver stops her car and  immediately runs out with her phone in her hand yelling to drop the weapons and that she was calling the police. Thankfully my parents saw the situation and came running out to clear the air of confusion, I was amazed to see the lady get so afraid, that after that moment I never brought my gun outside like that again. Now the reason why I bring up this story is because well, what if what happened to this young boy happened to me? What if the lady did call the police? Now I wouldn't have aimed the fake gun at the officer but I would've definitely been traumatized by the officers presents. Now looking at my view on this tragic moment, the question comes to mind... Why did the boy aim the gun at the officer in the first place? I mean I was 7-8 years old if the officer came up to me at the time I would've dropped the gun immediately! But this boy was 13 years old about a 4-5 year difference, wouldn't the boy have more common sense to have put the gun down like I would have at a much younger age? The situation could've ended on a much better and less tragic note then how it did. Now I'm not on the officers side because shooting the boy more than one time is pretty ridiculous, because one shot would've just been enough to end this terrible situation, so the officer is wrong for that, but yet the officer had a right to fire his weapon, because what if the gun was real? If the officer waited to figure out whether the weapon was fake or not, their life could've been just as easily put in danger as of anyone else who was around to witness. I just don't think it makes sense for the boy at his age to have made such an honestly stupid move such as to aim the weapon at the officer. So my view on this is this situation goes both ways, but its tragic and terrible to have happened, but it could've easily ended on a much better note than it did if only the young man had obeyed and put down the weapon like he should have, he would still be a live, a mourning mother wouldn't have to bury he own son and possible a police officer wouldn't have to go to sleep every night knowing he killed a young 13 year old boy.