Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1885-04-18
SEVENTH YEAR.
IT MUST BE STOPPED!

IT MUST BE STOPPED!
In fact, the WORLD means to say that
it shall be stopped.
Reference is made to the custom of
promiscuous shooting which has been in
dulged in by some of the boys in this
city. The practice las become a nui-
sance. It has become more than a
nuisance. It has become menace to
human life. Experience in army life has
produced the feeling among thoughtful
soldiers that the man who will point
gun which is known to be unloaded at
any one, even though the pointer be in
the most playful of moods, should be
punished just as severely as he who, with
malice aforethought, points a loaded
weapon at a personal enemy. This
proposition will most likely be questioned
by people whose minds never have been
directed to the subject. However, this
feeling of contempt for him who would
point weapon of any kind at another
vas founded on the best of grounds.
First, many men in the army had been
killed accidentally in this manner. Sec
ond, designing devils, in numerous in
stances, committed murder, and went
scot free because of dipping the military
authorities into the belief that the
weapon was supposed not to be loaded,
and that the murderer suffered greatly
from remorse for his mistake. These, we
will suggest in this connection, are phases
of military life which have been ignored
by historians; but the impartial history
Of the future, as far as the broken frag-
ments of truth can be collected, will make
some awful revelations.
Now, the sentiment in civil life regarding
the proper use of firearms should be as
lofty, at least, as that in military life.
Army life is, in marked degree, an
abandonment of the idea that life is a
precious thing. The soldier is supposed
to offer daily and hourly his life as sac
rifce for the good of the agency which
employs him. In civil life, the individual
is the unit of government. The preser-
walton of human life, as far as civil con-
siderations 60, is the first and best
thought of people as a body. The use of
the gun as a toy should, in view of this
theory, be entirely abolished. This con-
viction, in order to be potential, must
seize parents, and be taught by them to
the children.
Now, we have come to the place where
the action of some Wa-Keeney parents
is to be scrutinized. It is generally
accepted fact that, for some time past,
several boys in this town have been in
the habit of discharging firearms within
the city limits. This is vicious practice.
Even if the firearms never happen to be
directed at somebody's person or window
or valuable property, the most untoward
circumstances are likely to transpire to
convert this vicious practice into a posi-
tive crime. Last Saturday night, be-
tween the hours of and 10, in this city,
q stray bullet crashed through window
OF residence, and struck the floor within
few inches of the posts at the. head of
the bed. In that bed lay woman in a
precarious state of health. She was so
frightened over the occurrence that sleep
that whole night was banished from
her. Now, to begin with, nobody had
any right, either legal or moral, to be
discharging firearms within the city
limits in the night, unless to defend his
person or property. At this time. the
shooting is said to have been kept up in
that locality for at least half an hour.
The WORLD presumes that thoughtless
boys did this shooting. It does not wish
to conceive of men acting in so brainless
. manner. II boys, who have parents,
were conducting that carousal, the
parents, rather than the boys, are censur-
able. If boys, who have not parents,
created that .tsrore, the State Reform
echool is where they belong, and there
is law to send them there.
We ask the Wa-Keeney city govern
ment to do its simple duty toward the
preservation Of human life by adopting,
at its very next meeting, an ordinance
striking at the root of this detestable vice.
This promiscuous shooting within the
city limits Of Wa-Keeney shall be
stoppedl
A VALUABLE team was stolen
nom Mr.. Waugh, four miles from Alton,
Osborne county, the fore part of last week.