A couple years ago, after the girls grew up and moved out, we sold our Draper home and downsized to a 55 and older mobile home park here in near Calt Lake City, Ut. We found a nice older double-wide trailer for sale with a huge yard and reasonable lot rent, compared with most other parks. Within the confines of our walled and fenced in community, we’ve been very satisfied with the lifestyle. The neighbors are fantastic and everyone takes care of their property and watches out for each other. The entrance is not gated, but there is only one entry and exit point for motor vehicles and pedestrians.
This past Tuesday night, about 3am in the morning, I was awakened by a very short burst of a high caliber fully automatic weapon firing. It was only about 4 or 5 rounds, boom, boom, etc, but I knew it was gunfire and not firecrackers. I’ve fired an M-16 on full auto when I was in the Army Reserve and knew the difference. It was loud and had to be close to wake me up like that, but we live next to a major east-west street just over the fence. My first thought was “should I call the police?”. I laid there for a bit, listening intently, and figured that maybe some gang-bangers were driving down the road next to our park and just fired out the window for the hell of it. Calling the cops would probably be useless and I drifted off back to sleep. Mary was up front working on her sewing machine, had laid down on the sofa for a nap and never heard it.
I got up in the morning and went to work and after returning home that afternoon Mary told me that she got a call from our next door neighbor about 7:30 am after I was gone. She told Mary that she and her dog were awakened at about 3 am with someone banging on the side of her trailer! That was about the same time I heard the gunshots. She said that she was scared to death and her dog was barking like crazy. I asked Mary if she told her whether she had called the police and she had not. She wanted Mary to keep an eye on her trailer that day after she left for work. I walked around our places and couldn't find any shell casings or bullet holes in anything.
Pretty scary stuff. In my early years back in Milwaukee I was the victim of armed robbery twice and ever since have kept a weapon close at hand. I’m thinking of upgrading my firepower and having it at the ready. The problem with that is, with kids and grand-kids coming over, you have to make sure they don't have access to them, as well as someone who may break into your home while you are out. It's also pretty useless to have a weapon accessible, but have to scramble around for ammo to load while an emergency is happening.
The last couple days, I've been doing some research on products that may be commercially available to solve the problem and have found some things that could be very useful. I don't want to get into specifics for obvious reasons, but you can try doing your own research by using some common sense keywords.You never know what may happen these days, and the police may not be able to come to your aid quickly enough.
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