Bang Bang

We don't play Cowboys and Indians anymore. We play Cattle Management Specialists and Native Americans. We negotiate appropriate payment for agreed upon parcels of land, and we would never take up arms against one another. Not because it wouldn't be fun to pretend to shoot your friend. It's a lot of fun. It is completely cathartic and satisfying in a way that actual killing can never be. I know this because I spent a lot of time in my youth killing the other kids in my neighborhood. And we all lived to tell the tale. We all walked away. Andy Lopez Cruz did not.
If you've been avoiding the news, and why wouldn't you, you might not know that Andy was shot by sheriff's deputies in Sonoma County two weeks ago. He didn't pop back up and play again. There was no reset button. Andy was carrying a toy gun. It was an Airsoft BB gun that looked  a whole lot like a real AK-47. The biggest distinguishing characteristic in this case would have been the orange tip at the end of the muzzle. The one that had been removed. If you have a very cool, realistic replica of an AK-47, you don't want some silly neon orange tip at the end of your very realistic barrel. Not when there are hundreds of videos on YouTube that will tell you just exactly hot to take that silly neon orange tip off the end of your very realistic AK-47 BB gun.
There are not a lot of YouTube videos that will tell a community how to deal with the tragic and mistaken shooting of a thirteen-year-old boy. I suppose you could go back and take a look at the old "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episode starring Billy Mumy in which a six-year-old boy finds a loaded gun that he takes for his empty toy holster. The suspense came from wondering just when that real gun might go off. Spoiler alert: There was a happy ending.
I don't feel happy about the way things are now. I do feel that as a parent I am keeping my son from doing things that I did when I was a kid, and it makes me feel more than just a little hypocritical. It also makes me feel glad that, after I've told him what a bad idea it is to carry around guns that look real even when they aren't, he grumbles and moans and keeps on living. I won't offer a judgement on the case of Andy Cruz and the officer who shot him. It's far too terrible and complex for me to decide. I will continue to miss those days when kids could "play guns" the way we used to back in my old neighborhood. For the record, all the kids I grew up with are still around, though I 'm guessing that they feel the same wistful feeling for the way things used to be as they carry on with the party line. The incredibly careful, politically correct and boring party line.