Summer Harvest

On occasion, when I mention that I’m a pacifist, some misguided soul will pull out the old “What Would You Do If Someone Had A Gun To Your Wife/Daughter/Dog’s Head?” canard. Although this argument has been soundly and thoroughly trumped by John H. Yoder and others in his collection “What Would You Do?”, I now have another answer to provide disbelievers in the miraculous (registration may be required):

A grand feast of marinated steaks and jumbo shrimp was winding down, and a group of friends was sitting on the back patio of a Capitol Hill home, sipping red wine. Suddenly, a hooded man slid in through an open gate and put the barrel of a handgun to the head of a 14-year-old guest.

“Give me your money, or I’ll start shooting,” he demanded, according to D.C. police and witness accounts.

While he was at a Capitol Hill party last month, Michael Rabdau, above, and his wife watched as a man intruded upon the guests gathered in the back yard of their host’s home and held a gun to his 14-year-old daughter’s head. “I was definitely expecting there would be some kind of casualty,” Rabdau said.

The five other guests, including the girls’ parents, froze — and then one spoke.

“We were just finishing dinner,” Cristina “Cha Cha” Rowan, 43, blurted out. “Why don’t you have a glass of wine with us?”

The intruder took a sip of their Chateau Malescot St-Exupéry and said, “Damn, that’s good wine.”. . . .

Then he tucked the gun into the pocket of his nylon sweatpants.

“I think I may have come to the wrong house,” he said, looking around the patio of the home in the 1300 block of Constitution Avenue NE.

“I’m sorry,” he told the group. “Can I get a hug?”

After a group hug, the intruder left without protest. Now imagine what had happened if one of the partigoers had exercised his or her “right to bear arms” in the traditional sense. I’d imagine a ‘group hug’ wouldn’t have been the outcome.

Stories like this provide the ultimate answer to the illogic of the “What Would You Do?” question. Though it’s impossible for anyone to say what he or she would do in such extreme circumstances, there is something to be said for kindness and decency in the face of adversity.

(totkb2 DougD)