About those rural volunteer fire companies: The following incident happened in our small town in the early 1970's. The elderly owner of the used furniture store was robbed and beaten. We had no local PD at that time, so his wife went to the firehouse and set off the alarm. A call was also placed for the state police. Among the responding firefighters, the Chief arrived with his .30-06 model 70. The perp was running across a pasture, as the Chief lay his rifle across the hood of his truck. He got the scum in his crosshairs just as trooper arrived and shouted to him not to shoot. They caught the guy and told him how close he had come to getting shot. Don't underestimate volunteer firefighters.
If this had happened in 2022, the Fire Chief would have been the one in cuffs.
