Sound public policy and good business decisions are seldom made as a result of a few isolated incidents. What does happen after these incidents are efforts to make us all afraid. The result is something as ludicrous as a gun truck. Never underestimate the ability of fear to make us do stupid things. Never doubt the greed of some entrepreneurs to make money off our fears.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Maybe Chief Dotson, in his continuing efforts to encourage people not to travel around with guns, should enlist the help of the late country singer Johnny Cash. In 1958, Cash rose to the top of the charts with his hit song, \u201cDon\u2019t Take Your Guns to Town.\u201d For those too young to remember, the song tells the story of a young cowboy who, ignoring the advice of his mother, gets into gunfight at a saloon and is killed. The repeated refrain goes:<\/div>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t take your guns to town, son<\/p>\n
Leave your guns at home, Bill<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t take your guns to town.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe we should start to mind our mothers.<\/p>\n
[Editor’s note: This post was originally published on July 13, 2016 in the Op-Ed section of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.\u00a0 It is reprinted with permission of the author.]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Does the image of an armored truck, outfitted with 360-degree surveillance cameras and secured by body-camera-toting security guards, parked on the lot of a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[843,1656],"tags":[31,1330,2704],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>Does the image of an armored truck, outfitted with 360-degree surveillance cameras and secured by body-camera-toting security guards, parked on the lot of a bar in downtown St. Louis, fill you with civic pride?<\/p>\n