Riddled with Bullets

I've lived in a rural area my entire life. Even when I went to college I chose to go to St. John's University which is isolated out in the woods near St. Cloud in Minnesota. The city life has never been for me. Sure, I enjoy going to the occasional T-Wolves game, dance club, or concert, but the life that comes along with living in a city just won't work for me. One of the things I thought that you wouldn't have to deal with when living out in the country would be drive by shootings. Really, have you ever heard of a drive by shooting in farm country? I sure haven't... up until yesterday, that is.

My family farms. My dad and his two brothers farm about 1500 or so acres of land (I'm not sure on the exact number right now because they've added some more land in the last couple of years and I'm not quite sure how much). Before you plant in the spring, you usually dig up the ground and get it broken up after a long winter. We do this with a nice, big digger. New this year to the digger is a roller that is pulled behind it to firm up the ground a little bit after it has been torn apart by the digger. When the night came to a close two days ago, my dad parked the digger in one of our abandoned building sites, not expecting anything to happen.

When he came back yesterday morning to start digging again, there were bullet holes through the tires of the roller and the reflectors were shot off. From the angle they were shot off at, it was pretty easy to tell that someone was shooting at it from the road, no doubt using the reflectors as targets. After they had been shot off, whoever was busting caps in our machinery's ass must not have been satisfied so they drove into the building site, got right close the roller and digger, and put a whole bunch of rounds into the tires.

Seriously, who the hell goes around shooting out tires and reflectors of machinery that's out in the middle of freaking nowhere?!?!? I've got a very strong suspicion that whoever was doing this probably hung out with the lame ass idiots who were setting buildings on fire last month. Do kids' parents in our area not keep tabs on their children? I really don't understand it and it pisses me off to no end to know that there's a bunch of little wannabe punk gangsters, who are really nothing more than white trash hicks with no future, going around lighting stuff on fire and shooting things.

For punishment, if whoever did it is ever caught, the culprits will probably only get some type of probation or a fine or some stupid crap like that (especially if they're only juveniles). I propose a different style of punishment--shooting them in their bare asses with a high powered BB gun. It should have just enough power to hurt like hell, but not pierce the skin. For as many shots as each one took, they get that many BB's to the ass. I think it's only fair. I also think that more drastic punishment will help deter the little punks from doing similar stunts in the future. Really, does putting a kid on probation change him? In our area, no. Throughout high school, and from what my family tells me about the kids in the area since I've left high school, the same kids keep causing trouble over and over again no matter how "punished" they are by the juvenile system here. Maybe I'm just bitter that some punk ass kids were shooting up our stuff, but I really think there needs to be some stiffer punishment for kids who are causing trouble in the community.