I wonder how much truth there is to this stereotype. Have you personally known someone who have pulled a gun on someone in this situation…or someone who had a gun pulled out on them? Any news stories you’ve heard?
Baton Rouge is a city with something like 300,000 people. Not sure that counts as “the country”.
I had two guys with shotguns tell me to get lost once. We were on publice property, but they didn’t care for the proximity. They were some wise guys from a “private club”.
When I was a senior in high school we lived in what we called “the country”, though it was more like sparsely populated suburbs. I was selling magazine subscriptions door to door, and most people were OK with that. But there was one house where I was told in no uncertain terms to leave. It was dark, and this was a really long time ago, but I’m pretty sure there was a gun pointed at me.
I grew up in about as rural an area as you could ask for, and I never saw it happen, nor did I hear of it happening. People were quick enough to pull out a gun if someone actually tried to break in, and some would eventually resort to it if a trespasser (i.e., someone actually on their property) refused to leave or acted in a threatening manner, but I don’t think anyone preemptively brandished guns at people for approaching their property.
Not exactly, but my folks used to own a vacation home in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. One time I went there for a weekend with some friends from college; we arrived after dark. A little while later, Myron, the guy from down the road, stopped in to make sure we belonged there. After he left, one of my friends asked if I had noticed that he had a gun on his hip (I hadn’t).
Sorry, no link but there was a guy near me a few years ago who was deer hunting on his own property when he found a tree stand someone had set up on without asking permission. He took it down and loaded it on his truck, left a note on the tree explaining where the stand owner could reclaim it and was just getting ready to leave when the stand owner walked up and accused the land owner of theft. Harsh words were exchanged and the stand owner ended up firing a shot into the truck’s radiator. Cops were called and it turns out that the truck shooter violated his probation so that shot cost him eighteen months.
Relevance? This sounds like a trespasser discharging a firearm and causing property damage, not a property owner brandishing a firearm at potential trespassers/innocent passers-by, which is what I believe the OP was asking about.
In the vast majority of places, no, it’s not true. However, when I thnk of Madison County, NC, I always think that I would not want to get lost or have to turn around in someone’s driveway, because it’s pretty “Deliverance” there.
Rural Virginia here. Yes, sometimes. Some people are just very territorial and guns are more common in the country. Really when you’re 30 minutes or more from any law enforcement, it is wise to be ready to defend yourself if necessary.
Of course there are those with something to hide like moonshine stills or probably more commonly marijuana plants, those people are more motivated to keep people away from their activities.
By and large though I think most property owners might question you trespassing on their property, but you probably won’t see a gun.
Closest story I had, sue me. FWIW, both sides claimed the other aimed their weapons at them.
I lived way out in the county for a while. When it’s getting dark and a strange car pulls up in the driveway with three or four people in it, what is the best course of action? Say hello and pretend they are friendly, even if they’ve done nothing to show that is the case? I chose to remain in the house, or went into the house, and talked to them through the door. The shotgun was leaning against the door frame where nobody could see it. I had to show the gun to a guy once in two years because his story didn’t make sense and he wouldn’t leave. I doubted he needed two friends to help him sell whatever it was he was selling. I wouldn’t say I “brandished” it, certainly didn’t point it, I just let him and his friends know I wasn’t alone so they got back in the car and went away.
I have spent a fair amount of time looking for reptiles in the southeast US. This involves walking down dirt roads, through woods and swamps, and flipping over logs, rocks, bark, and pieces of abandoned and deteriorating buildings. It is often difficult to tell whether the land belongs to the state, a paper company or a farmer. I have met a few gun-carrying people while doing this who inquired as to what I was doing. I never had an unpleasant encounter.
In southern Ohio where I live, it is not unusual for farmers and others who live in rural areas to do pretty much like shiftless described above when they get an unexpected visitor.
Where I live, there isn’t much traffic, and a strange car easing down the road slowly draws attention. This happend once. It was pretty clear to me the neighborhood was being cased.
I didn’t “pull a gun” on them, but I wandered around the yard with a couple of pieces and when they saw me, they sped up and left the area.
Yes we do. All the time. Especially on people who belong to certain subcultures and are digging up our plants. :dubious: For just regular folks, we generally take a more Mayberry-esque approach and say hey to daytime visitors, ask if we can help them find something or whatever. Late-night or questionable characters get “special handling.” For the sake of property owners everywhere, I’ll just leave that up to Diamonds02’s imagination.
I fly research balloons with my university, and, more often than not, that involves going up to random houses in rural northern Wisconsin or southern Minnesota and asking for permission to wander through a field. We joke about it a lot, but we’ve only had a gun pulled on us once. However, based on the enormous amount of barking we heard from behind the barn, we already suspected a puppy mill. Like control-z said, it’s more likely to be people with something to hide.
One popeye episode:
“Are you Itchfield or Magoo?”
My brother was driving through extremely rural Idaho not too long ago when a few men walked on to the road and flagged him down. They asked him if he was looking for something, and when my brother said he was just passing through, they “suggested” that he keep moving and not stop until he reached the next town. The men were all armed, two with handguns on their belts and one with a shotgun.
My brother (who is a U.S. Marshal and was carrying, although he wasn’t on-duty at the time) said he thought they might be militia nutters, although he was certain that he was on a public road. Anyway, he said he didn’t feel threatened, but he didn’t want to press the issue, so he just nodded and went on.
I grew up in rural Idaho and was never threatened, but then it was my neighborhood. We knew everyone who lived around us and what they drove. So when a strange car was seen cruising around… well, it pings your radar. Everyone I knew owned guns, but I never heard of anyone having to use one. BTW this was down in Mormon country, not up where those militia wack jobs hole up.