What’s been going on lately with all the child abductions and murders?  Has the problem gotten worse lately or are we just hearing more about it? 

As I was typing this I thought I’d go get some links to the stories that have been coming out lately.  I stumbled across this item from KGTV in San Diego via Yahoo! news.  Their take on this is that there aren’t more child abductions occurring now than in the past, but that the news media is really paying a lot of attention to this topic right now.  That’s probably correct, but the media can really drive people’s perceptions of events.

I think what really brought this to mind was the abduction of a baby from a Wal-Mart parking lot in Abilene, TX last week.  The woman who abducted the child was caught in Quanah, TX, which is on the way to Amarillo on Highway 287.  On the return trip from my vacation in California, I was stopped by a DPS trooper on 287 because there was an alert out for a blue Chevy Avalanche.  The trooper looked at me and my mother and immediately knew that we weren’t the people he was seeking.  Of course I had to go through the CHL drill with him when he wanted to see my driver’s license.  He was actually quite polite about it and thanked us for being patient when we left.  My mother told me that there had been an attempted abduction in Amarillo the evening before, and that the suspect in that case was driving a blue Avalanche.  Once I knew that, I was willing to put up with the inconvenience of the stop, because the officer was looking for someone who had tried to do something truly evil.

It also makes me wonder what would have happened had there been a CHL holder in that Wal-Mart parking lot.  Perhaps the kidnapping could have been stopped right then and there.  Of course, as they teach you in the CHL course, you unholster a lot of responsibility when that gun comes out.  The question here would be does the crime rise to the level of “aggravated kidnapping”, which is important, since according to Texas Penal Code Section 9.32 (a)(3)(B), one may only use deadly force to prevent the other’s imminent commission of aggravated kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated robbery.  The woman was charged with kidnapping, rather than aggravated kidnapping, but I think in this case a person who intevenes would be given the benefit of the doubt (provided no innocent bystanders are injured) (but then again, I’m not a lawyer, so that opinion is worth every penny you paid for it ).  I know that I’d have to take the chance if it were one of my nieces (provided I could do so without harming them).  Still, one has to be prepared to go to jail while the case is resolved.