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JOHNSON: Of mice and guns and JonBenet

By Bill Johnson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published July 10, 2008 at 8:20 p.m.

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Firing wildly and blindly, sweat-soaked in the oppressive heat . . .

C'mon, people. Ease up. I did not go off on a rant about your kids or your momma.

What I am fast learning, though, is you may love handguns way more than you do either the former or the latter.

All that I said - for maybe the 150th time here - is that handguns are an abomination in any civilized society. Ooh, were those fighting words.

Let me give you a little tip: When you start a phone message with "You stupid idiot!" that is about all I hear.

Trust me, after some 16 years of doing this work, my skin and hide are about as thick as they come. I've heard it all. I just have no time anymore for adult childishness. Life is too short.

Click and next message.

It is much better to agree with me, if for no other reason than I cannot use the filth.

Agree the way Daniel from Fort Collins did, whose last name I'm not sharing because I'm sure he, too, really doesn't need people tracking him down and shouting into his phone.

"I believe they are not only an abomination," he said of handguns, "I believe they are weapons of mass destruction."

Just thought I'd zing you one more time.

Of JonBenet Ramsey, DNA, genetic material, Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy and apologies, I have one simple thought.

Actually, a couple of them: John Mark Karr and the ransom note. Of Karr, well, that whole business speaks for itself.

Of the ransom note, I've never once covered a story or heard of one where an intruder actually sat down to write one while the folks in the house he broke into slept upstairs, who didn't like his or her first extortion attempt and crumpled it up, started over, rambled, yet knew the precise amount the sleeping man of the house earned in a bonus that year.

Not only that, but an intruder who actually left the note to be found while going about duct-taping, perhaps molesting, garroting and leaving for dead in the basement the one person who could land him or her the bonus that he or she so painstakingly tried to secure with a time-consuming note.

Such a leisurely bold knucklehead, you figure, would and should have been caught long ago.

No, the apology Mary Lacy should have written was for her office and the Boulder Police Department's fouling up the investigation into that little girl's murder from the get-go and beyond.

Wendy Allen of Lakewood wrote asking for help. I do what I can.

She wonders if the mice that have migrated from the drainage and fields around Wright Street and Jewell Avenue, and have overrun her basement, garage and yard can give her the deadly Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.

Like I know.

She explains that last fall she tried to be humane with the mice, trapping them before letting them go in a field a few blocks away.

What finally got her was when she discovered they had gotten into her dry goods in the basement.

"They really like the cheese sauce in Mac-n-Cheese!" Wendy Allen reports.

So she set out the wooden, snap-their-necks-type traps, every morning dutifully donning gloves and a mask to haul the moribund rodents to the trash.

And then she saw a June 28 story in this newspaper about a man dying from Hantavirus.

"I think there might be a lot of people around here who would benefit from a refresher course on which mice are the bad ones, and which ones are less likely to carry the disease."

I called John Papi, an epidemiologist with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, its lead guy on mice and Hantavirus.

"The answer is, it depends," he said, initially being of no help at all. "Without actually looking at (the mice), it is hard to say."

It is deer mice, he finally said firmly, that carry the disease, which is carried in the saliva, urine and feces of infected mice.

People are infected by breathing in the virus when coming into direct contact with the rodents, or disturbing nests and sending into the air the dried leftovers of what the mice, well, leave.

The good news, Wendy Allen, is deer mice "typically don't hang out," John Papi said, in urban areas.

And you can readily tell the difference between deer mice and the common, gray house mice, he said.

Deer mice are brown on top and white on the bottom, with a distinct line that separates the two colors. Their tail, he adds, is similarly bicolored.

The common house mouse is often uniform in color, he said, and generally poses no threat of off-loading Hantavirus.

The best way to guard against the disease, he cautioned, is to deny mice access to food in the home.

And if you are really worried, John Papi suggests you go to the department's Web site.

It has, he said, color pictures of both the good and bad mice, and everything.

Comments

  • July 10, 2008

    9:11 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    LoFat writes:

    Mr. Johnson; yes you believe that handguns are an abomination. That is your God-given right as reaffirmed in the U.S. Constitution. I personally believe that the social miscreants, malcontents, and plain murderous criminals are the abomination. Guns, of themselves have never intentionally stalked and killed any living creature on this earth. These aforementioned social misfits that choose to spread their reign of terror and death should be terminated with extreme prejudice, preferably with handguns, and only after a lawful trial by a jury of their peers.

    That said, I find the rest of your article totally refreshing. It appeared to be a factual, well stated article expressing your beliefs succinctly. It is seldom one sees such clarity in writing any more. Thank you.

  • July 11, 2008

    7:55 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    theairdog writes:

    I don't believe that we live in a civilized society.

    Handguns ARE an abomination. So are knives, clubs, fists and just being a big hairy male (or female) that doesn't care about anyone else and will use physical force to make you do what they want.

    Until you can guarantee me a world in which they no longer exist, please don't tell me what hardware I should choose to use to defend myself against them.

  • July 11, 2008

    10:31 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    vendari01 writes:

    Having read your comment concerning handguns in a civilized society, I find myself agreeing with you; unfortunately, I must also agree with "airdog", in that we do not live in a civilized society. There a still too many people who willingly use force to take that which others have earned. That fact accounts for my line of work, as an armed security officer, as well as for my previous line, as a member of the armed forces of this country. Banning such weapons would take them away from those of us who carry one for legitimate purposes. I'm sure the police would prefer to do my work, but they are overworked now, and usually must settle for finding the criminal after the crime has been commited. The person using a weapon in commission of a crime does not care, and the only way to get his would involve a thorough house-to-house search, in order to confiscate each and every privately-owned handgun. Govenments that do that sort of thing are refered to as "totalitarian", if I remember my PolSci courses properly.

  • July 11, 2008

    10:35 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Ted_in_Vegas writes:

    Funny how he only responds to the most angry of responses. I, and several others, kept our cool and gave him intelligible, cool-headed responses and he ignores those.

    Probably couldn't handle it.

  • July 11, 2008

    11:34 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    arby writes:

    I must agree with Mr. Johnson. Handguns have no other purpose than to kill people. However, I have a couple and if you come in my house univited I will shoot you with one or the other.

    As to the mice a 357 is over kill a 22 works good. I always like to hear the snap of the trap.

  • July 11, 2008

    11:42 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    arby writes:

    r.e. The Jonbenet part of this article. I've been involved in a couple of criminal investigations and the Boulder police turned the whole thing into a cluster F. Then the DA made it worse. What a total bunch of screw ups. There is no way they will ever convict anyone for that little girls murder.

  • July 11, 2008

    12:17 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    vendari01 writes:

    Arby, I hope you're wrong, but I'm afraid you're right. The blame game will continue, while the perpetrator goes unpunished.

  • July 23, 2008

    12:46 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    SON writes:

    Ted In Vegas,
    Nothing about you is cool headed or intelligible. Thank God for spell check on the computer or you would have had trouble with your spelling. In case you didn't realize he was talking to you idiot.