From time to time, I receive inquiries from citizens as to how they can go about acquiring a hand gun permit, or if the BCSO offers any sort of gun safety and training courses. The answer is yes ~ the Sheriff’s Office does routinely offer gun and safety training.Anyone interested in taking the BCSO gun safety course, should contact Cathy Ruth at 7287301. She will send you all the information you need. Classes will begin again after the first of the year; however, we do require a certain number of people to enroll before we commit our time and personnel. There is a $5 fee, which goes to the Cleveland Hunting, Rifle and Pistol Club for the use of their shooting range. The course itself is free. Classes are held on Friday evenings and the shooting range is used on Saturdays mornings. Instructors are Richard Taylor of the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency and BCSO Capt. Jim Ruth.

I have always been a big supporter of our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The U.S. Constitution guarantees us that right. I am completely in favor of lawabiding citizens owning a firearm to secure their person, their possessions and their homes, as well as for hunting or sport shooting. However, I would also encourage people to only purchase safe, reliable, functional weapons from a reputable firearms dealer, and go through the proper channels of securing permits, training and knowledge of the law.

The BCSO training course will provide you with information about gun safety, how to obtain a carry permit (which can only be issued by the state), target practice and other practical concerns. We are not obligated to offer gun and safety training, but we do so anyway because it is every lawabiding citizen’s right to own a firearm. In fact, I encourage people to take the course we offer for that very reason. I own guns and my son owns a gun.

All too often, deputies must confiscate cheap, unreliable and dangerous hand guns from criminals. Most often these criminals know very little about gun safety, and they care even less. These confiscated weapons usually have the serial numbers filed off or they are in such shoddy condition that they pose a hazard to the shooter as well as the shooter’s intended victim. These deficient, unreliable firearms usually always end up in the hands of criminals, gang members or people who fail to qualify for ownership, and they pose any number of dangers to the public safety.

Obviously, once weapons are confiscated they are not returned to the criminals. It therefore falls to the BCSO to dispose of them. The law requires confiscated weapons be disposed of in one of three ways: they may be sold at auction, they may be traded with reputable dealers for other weapons or they may be destroyed. Confiscated weapons that have any worth are sold or traded to reputable gun dealers. Of course, no reputable dealer will touch unsafe hand guns or illegal weapons such as sawedoff shotguns; therefore, there is no other recourse for the BCSO but to destroy them.

The Tennessee Law Enforcement Training Academy’s new Sheriff’s School, sanctioned by the Tennessee Post Commission, strongly recommends that confiscated weapons not be sold in the auction process because the potential liability to the county is untenable should a cheap, recycled weapon be used in the commission of a crime. It can be documented that guns sold at Bradley County auctions in years past have, in fact, made their way onto the black market so actual ownership could not be traced. It’s the same principle as moneylaundering. A weapon sold at auction can actually change hands three or four times through sale, trade or barter within hours of its initial purchase. Allowing cheap, unreliable and dangerous hand guns to make their way back into the possession of criminals in this manner is inconsistent with our job of protecting and securing lives. Therefore, it is the policy of the BCSO to follow the recommendation of the new Tennessee Sheriff’s School and not sell these types of guns at auction.

Again, I believe owning a firearm to be the inherent right of every lawabiding American citizen, and I encourage everyone who wants to learn more about guns and their safe operation to take advantage of the free classes offered by the BCSO. As always, I welcome your letters and emails and will gladly address your concerns and/or opinions here in this column. Contact me at comments@bradleysheriff.com

Back in 1621, when the Pilgrims at Plymouth settlement sat down with the Wampanoag Indians to share the first autumn harvest feast, they had no way of knowing their meal would become the first Thanksgiving dinner, or that the tradition would continue, off and on, for at least another 386 years ~ right up to today.

While we celebrate that tradition on the fourth Thursday in November, the first Thanksgiving feast actually went on for three days and guests included the famous Indian king, Massasoit, who is largely credited with saving the colonists from starvation during those first grueling years of the settlement.

Although historians don’t necessarily agree as to what the first Thanksgiving meal consisted of, they do all seem to believe that a lot of our modern day staples weren’t in evidence back then, including pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes or cranberry sauce.

According to historians, there were probably no sweet potatoes, or potatoes of any kind, on the table, as many Europeans still considered potatoes (and tomatoes) to be poisonous. And while there may have been some type of corn-based fried bread, there was probably no corn on the cob, as corn was usually being dried out during the fall season. The Pilgrims didn’t bring any cows over on the Mayflower, so there was probably no cheese or butter ~ unless they whipped some up from goat’s milk. They had pigs, but historians claim none were butchered at that time. They had cranberries but no sugar, so cranberry sauce hadn’t even been conceived of. Nor had pumpkin pie been created yet. There were recipes for stewed pumpkins, but not pie. There may have been eggs and chicken, if any were left from the trip from England, but that’s just a guess.

So while no one knows with certainty what those first celebrants actually dined on, we do know deer meat and wild fowl were definitely on the menu. Wild fowl, of course, was in abundance ~  cranes, geese, swans, duck, partridge, eagles and our own perennial favorite, turkey. Other possible food items could well have included seafood, as they were so near the coast. They could have eaten lobster, cod, clams, eel or possibly even seal meat.

Vegetables could have included pumpkin, onions, beans, peas, carrots, or maybe a rudimentary salad of lettuce, watercress and radishes, possibly with a little olive oil dressing. They could have had fruit, such as grapes, plums or berries. Or nuts, such as chestnuts, walnuts or acorns. They also could have whipped something up from grains of the day, such as Indian corn and wheat flour. Whatever they had could have been seasoned with parsnips, leeks, dried currants, liverwort or salt. Their diet would have included a lot of dried foods, as there was no refrigeration and food items were easily spoiled.

The Pilgrims, who were originally members of the English Separatist Church, left England to pursue their faith. Before sailing to America, they first tried settling in The Netherlands; but after a time, the conservative Separatists began to view Dutch society as ungodly (I can’t help but wonder how different the world would be today had they chosen to stay in The Netherlands). Interestingly, of all the ones who traveled to the new world aboard the Mayflower, only about a third were Separatist. The rest were crew members or men hired on as protection. Of the 102 Pilgrims who settled Plymouth, 46 died within the first year due to illness and hardship ~ nearly half their number.

One of the most detailed first-hand accounts of the first Thanksgiving can be found in Edward Winslow’s “A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth,” written between 1620 and 1621. I encourage everyone, especially our young people, to learn all they can about the history of our great country and where we come from as a people and a nation. Only by understanding what came before can we reasonably plot a path into the future.

Although World War I ~ The Great War ~ officially ended with the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919, the fighting had actually ceased seven months earlier on November 11, 1918 (“the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month”), when an armistice went into effect between the Allies and Germany. A year later in 1919, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed November 11 to be “Armistice Day” ~ a day of national remembrance to honor the sacrifice of the 116,000 Americans “who died in the country’s service” during WWI. On May 13, 1938, Congress enacted legislation making Armistice Day a national holiday.

Ironically, WWI was referred to as “the war to end all wars,” but sadly, that turned out not to be the case, and after suffering through another “great war” in Europe and the Pacific, as well as the Korean war, Americans decided it was time to honor all veterans, not just those of WWI. So it was that on June 1, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill replacing “Armistice” with “Veterans,” and thus was born what we now call “Veterans Day.”

For 10 years, beginning in 1968, the date of Veterans Day was moved to the fourth Monday in October in order that Americans could enjoy a three-day weekend. Ostensibly, this was to allow for plenty of time to attend memorials, remembrances and ceremonies. But a lot of folks were concerned that the importance of Veterans Day would be lost in the heady anticipation of a long weekend. In fact, many states refused to acknowledge the fourth Monday date and continued to observe November 11 as the one true Veterans Day. It was for this reason, in 1978, that President Gerald Ford signed another bill into law re-designating November 11 as the official date of Veterans Day. So it remains today.

A lot of people confuse Veterans Day with Memorial Day, which is observed on the last Monday of May. This is a common mistake in that both days are dedicated to the sacrifices of American servicemen and women. But while Veterans Day is designed to celebrate our living veterans, Memorial Day is designed to remember our dead. Although it can be argued that it is impossible to honor the living without honoring the dead. And vice versa.

On a more personal level, Bradley County has had its share of veterans who have served honorably and consistently over the years in peacetime and in war (in fact, many of them are now deputies and employees of the Sheriff’s Office). Some of our local veterans are publically recognized ~ like Sgt. Paul Huff ~ but most are not. And some never return home to friends and family, as was the case last year with Sgt. David Weir, who made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq.

But Bradley County veterans have performed their duties with honor and dignity, then returned home without fanfare to build lives of normalcy as spouses, parents, daughters and sons. It’s hard to know exactly how many veterans Bradley County actually has, though, because there are no good tracking systems in place. Even the local VA office has trouble coming up with an exact number. A rough estimate of cases they service each month would be between 140 to 160, but that includes the surrounding area, not just Bradley County.

Our nation was conceived in war 231 years ago ~ the Revolutionary War. Since then, the U.S. has been involved in a number of conflicts around the world, at home and abroad ~ the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish American War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the first Persian Gulf War and now Iraq. And although I doubt there’s a single person reading this who celebrates war, there are many who recognize its necessity ~ especially in this day of global terrorism. I pray we never lose the courage or heart to stand against tyranny and oppression, wherever we find it.

So, it is with great humility that I lend my voice this Veterans Day to the voices of countless other grateful Americans and say thank you to the men and women who willingly face unknown danger in hostile lands to defend the freedoms we all too often take for granted.

Well, I’ve passed my one-year mark as Sheriff of Bradley County and I must say, it’s been a pleasure serving you all. We’ve faced some tough challenges, but overall we’ve seen a lot of improvements in this office and I feel we’ve laid down a firm foundation upon which to build for the future.

But one of my greatest pleasures this first year has been having the opportunity to personally meet so many Bradley County citizens. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating ~ we have some of the greatest folks on earth living right here in Cleveland/Bradley. This community has supported the BCSO in a big way and I think it’s only fair the BCSO give something back.

That’s why we’ve decided to invite you all to the first Sheriff’s Family Day which will be held on Sat. October 13, from 12:00 noon until 5:00 p.m. at Stuart School (Keith & 20th - Click for Map ). This will be a time when everyone can turn out and enjoy a day of family-friendly activities and entertainment, courtesy of the Bradley County Sheriff’s Office.

Bring your lawn chairs and blankets and plan on enjoying plenty of free food, live entertainment, fun for the kids, door prizes and a whole lot more. And no taxpayer money will be spent on this event, thanks to the efforts of volunteers and sponsors who are donating their time, services, food and merchandise.

This Family Day is still evolving, but at this time we have arranged for air toys for the kids, the moonwalk, face painting, horseback rides and give-aways. There will be various contests that will test the skills of young and old alike, a kissing booth, live music and stage performances, the TWRA diorama and a whole lot more. We’ve also gotten some of our local vendors and artisans to donate wares and products to be given away as door prizes. Folks, I’ve seen some of these door prizes and believe me, they’re nice.