This past Saturday, October 17, 2020, I got wind of a story about a kooky shooting in Kingsville, Maryland; a sleepy quasi-rural community in Baltimore County, currently home for some 4400 people. Delightful, not quite the country communities like Kingsville were created by good ole boys, farmers and grand old families on properties outside city suburbs. Today, an aging local populace works its way through the first pangs of urban sprawl as modern subdivisions slowly begin to replace spaces once filled with tilled fields and pasture lands. People with multi-generational roots in Kingsville are friendly Americans, welcoming their new neighbors to the community.
Enter, Douglas Edward Kuhn – an IT professional employed by a firm in New Mexico, and one of those newer Kingsville residents. Last April, 50 year old Kuhn paid $675,000 for an absolutely lovely piece of real estate. The parcel of well tended land measures just under 15 acres and features a stunning, fully updated Colonial house, built circa 1915. Locals in Kingsville breathed a heavy sigh of relief when the Cedar Lane property was purchased with its Agricultural Use designation intact. There were no signs the lovely single home estate would be turned into blocks of houses for 30+ families. Unfortunately, the change in ownership still shattered the peace in this off-the-beaten-trail community.
Shortly before 2:30 pm on Saturday, police responded to a disturbance call near Cedar Lane and Mt. Vista Road in Kingsville. A homeowner had been posting a political sign on his property when the driver of a pickup truck carrying signs for the opposing party’s candidate honked the horn while motoring past. Apparently, the homeowner felt an equal and appropriate response to the driver’s horn abuse was to grab a shotgun and blast it the truck’s direction. Neither truck nor occupants were injured, thankfully. Truck driver pulled off a safe distance up the road and called the police. Short Sighted Shotty McGee was arrested without incident.
Did Joe Biden’s advice to fire a shotgun in the air as a way to warn people off take root good and tight in Kuhn’s sh*t simple lil heart? He ought not feel badly if inspiration to chase a truck down the street and shoot a round over its head came from the Phantom of the Election’s poor advice. Kuhn wouldn’t be the first witless wonder outside of Joe’s immediate family victimised by Biden Misdirection.
It didn’t take much effort to determine the address where this occurred and the shooters identity – Douglas Edward Kuhn, the new kid on the block. It did seem as though I’d have to visit Kingsville if I wished to learn what political party messaging Kuhn has determined renders a person deserved of a rootin’ tootin’ shootin’. Pondering the conspicuous absence of that data in official reports, the newness of Mr. Kuhn to the neighborhood and his irrational behaviour, I indulged myself with a comfy presumption that the truck was probably heavy with Trump signage – and the shooter inflicted with a bad case of TDS. Gosh, turned out that was a good guess.
Kuhn’s victims have been identified as Neal Houk, driver of the horny truck, and Neal’s son Bradley Lang, former Vice President of the Towson College Republicans.
“It’s Kingsville, it’s a friendly area. Everyone honks at each other. We think we were hoping there could be some civility between people who support different candidates,” Lang told WBALTV.
“He picked up a shotgun from near his feet and ran towards us aiming it and we got 100, 200 feet down the road, he began to fire,” Lang continues. “We were scared, although we were happy that he missed, the truck was missed and we were alright.”
Houk shared an accounting of the bizarre event with Channel 2.
“I came down Cedar and turned down here and blew the horn. There was a gentleman in the field putting up a banner and I blew the horn and he had a shotgun right there and he reached down, picked it up, pointed it,“ said Houk. “My son was in the passenger seat. We looked straight down the barrel and we looked in disbelief and then right then he fired the shotgun.”
“I would never think — especially in Kingsville — that anyone would be violent about this situation. We all play nice here. It is America,” Houk told WBALTV.
See Also: The View From Here
Douglas Kuhn allegedly told police he had a shovel, not a shotgun. Witness testimony cleanly refuted that claim. Police charged Kuhn with two counts each of first-degree and second-degree assault, felony use of a firearm, reckless endangerment and other charges. He was denied a bail hearing until Monday morning. At the hearing, Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Schellenberger gave the nod to Kuhn’s being released on bail after home detention had been arranged, Kuhn was released from custody Monday night. He’ll be staying at home until his next court date. The presiding judge, Baltimore County District Court Judge Philip Tirabassi, was reportedly, “furious over the current political climate, saying he was aghast that life has gotten to this stage.”
“How did it get to the point where he pulls out a shotgun? What has the world come to? This is beyond belief. Free speech. Why resort to weaponry. This could have been horrible,” Judge Tirabassi fumed from the bench.
Saturday’s shotgun discharge moment is not the first instance of trouble with Kuhn’s political displays. FOX45 News interviewed some neighbors of the trigger happy Biden devotee, including a gentleman named David Franz who has lived in Kingsville for 35 years. Franz said Kuhn’s signs and flags for Biden-Harris and BLM tend to disappear a few days after they appear.
“The ‘Black Lives Matter’ sign was down and one of the Biden signs was down — they’re flags that were torn down,” said Franz.
Well now. It becomes a bit more clear why Kuhn was so irked. Where my headspace exists, (which is outside of what is legal in the state of Maryland,) a man catching trespassers destroying his personal property has the right to shoot a trespassing vandal. There is no justification in shooting at a passing motorist who has done no harm, however. Why the hell did Kuhn even have a shotgun with him? Does he really take his property and/or politics so seriously? Something is missing. More than just the man’s sense.
A quick look through publicly available records produces the Deed to the property on Cedar Lane. Douglas Kuhn co-owns the home with another gentleman, William E. Narrow. Kuhn and Narrow appear on the Deed as ‘tenants by the entireties’, Owner/Occupants. Both are also equally responsible to pay the $573,750.00 debt recorded on a Deed of Trust secured by the property. That’s a helluva mortgage for land zoned Agricultural, useless to home developers. Perhaps Maryland’s recent laws on cannabis use sparked the idea of starting a farm. Just musing. Also, in the Lutheran Volunteer Corp (LVC) Annual Report, FY 2010-2011, “William Narrow and Doug Kuhn” appears, like that, in a list of people recognised as generous donors of $5000 or more. Perhaps theirs is a simple business arrangement. Perhaps, more.
Douglas Kuhn’s choices to festoon his property with markers of politics and social policy not embraced by the people he has opted to live amongst, and actually firing a shotgun at his fellow citizens, suggest he is an intolerant control freak who is regularly inconsiderate of others. His would not be a novel impetus if the decision to move to a traditionally conservative neighborhood was impelled by a desire to “influence” people he considers some kind of backwards hick. He has the right to his opinion and free speech, just like all U.S. citizens. So long as his efforts do not impede another’s path to their pursuit of happiness. Overkill is an impediment, a distraction, an unnecessary whap upside the head. As of Monday evening there are three, full size Biden flags (two, pictured above) on Kuhn’s property. At least. That’s at least two too many if ya want to be neighborly.
OK – fair and balanced criticism moment. It’s not just people to the Left who seem unable to curb their yen to vomit bodacious amounts of political messaging. Some Trump supporters have brought tacky campaigning overkill to the party, as well. See, Neal Houk’s truck, long may it roll and wave:
Yes and again, depending on any housing codes relevant to his home on Cedar Lane, Douglas Kuhn is free to fly fifty Biden flags if it makes him feel happy. Such overkill, however, will invite a negative response. One wonders if a single flag would ever have been removed from it’s assigned place if only a single flag had ever been displayed.
The insistent abundance factor makes this homeowners political messaging smell like a disrespectful, purposeful tweaking of nerves. Let me qualify such a castigating personal values assumption. Doug Kuhn lives on a local traffic kind of thoroughfare. The only people who see his banners are community members going back and forth to work, school, church, shopping, etc. He’s doing this for them. Rather, for himself and to them.
It would be nice if we could be more respectful of the old when we decide to make it our new. Moving into established communities means moving into established mindsets and preferences. A certain level of assimilation is expected when one plants new roots. Attempting to push a personal agenda down the throats of the uninterested will not yield positive results. These are human nature truisms most of us figure out by the time we reach the age of majority – Kuhn somehow missed those life lessons back when they don’t hurt so much to learn.
Conversely, hands off the property of disrespectful people who do not participate in the niceties that keep society peaceful. It is not acceptable for Trump supporters to trespass on private property or destroy other peoples political messaging devices. Period. Besides being unlawful and not nice, it is easy enough to drive ’em nuts with your own signs and a truck horn, apparently.
It seems relevant to note that while Kuhn’s flags were tampered with, his house was not set afire. Yet, he seems to have found the decision to risk human life and property a quick and easy choice to make. There are clear patterns of personal conduct regularly displayed by US of Americans versus the citizen seeking to turn an exceptional nation into a typical failure. Even if it should turn out that Kuhn has been the target of much hate and feels as though he is in danger, chasing a vehicle as it drives away so you can blast at it with a shotgun is considered wildly inappropriate – by sane people.
This ‘Merican wonders if liberal legislators writing Red Flag laws haven’t been motivated to do so by the Douglas Kuhns in their own family trees.
Airhead Author Note
I thought I’d posted this last night, Tuesday. Think I took it down to edit because it’s long, and yet, did not do any editing. Sorry for the ramble.
If I did already post this, please accept my apologies for the overkill. 😉