OUTRAGE!

Couple who adopted 12 children slain

That was the CNN headline of a news story that caught my eye. The more I read about this story, the more outraged I became. The story isn't finished either. Three suspects were arrested over the weekend and more are still at large, says Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan.

What Happened
On July 9th, just around 7 p.m. three men dressed in black were seen on surveillance video approaching the home of Byrd and Melanie Billings in a late 1970s or early 1980s red van about 7 p.m., authorities say. Their home in Beulah is about 17 miles northwest of Pensacola.

Just before 8 p.m. the police received a call of shots fired at the address. When they arrived, they found both Byrd and Melanie Billings dead. Both had been shot to death, one of the couple had been shot in the head.

The Billings have 16 children, twelve of whom are adopted. At the time of the killings, eight of the children, ages from infant to about 11 years-old, were asleep in the home. Police are still searching for the three men and the red van. As yet, the public doesn't know the motive for the killings.

The Family
That Byrd and Melanie Billings were a very special couple is evident. Byrd was a successful business man and the couple owned a number of local businesses, including Worldco Financial Services and Purshu Autos. Their home has nine bedrooms and sits back off the street at the end of a long driveway for the safety of their children.

In a special Christmas story, published Christmas day, 2005, the Pensacola News Journal profiled the Billings family as a story of love and commitment.

They were the proud parents of 16 children. Twelve are adopted -- among them, children of drug users, children who were sexually abused and children with developmental disabilities. Six of the 12 have Down syndrome. Two have died.

In the article, The Journal said: The Billingses' life is paved with challenges, a journey they never expected. But if they could do it all over again, it's the only path they would take.

"Our life, our children, is about choices we have made," said Byrd, 63.

"Holidays are so special." said Melanie, 40. "You never know when you won't have this time," she said.

Today, those words sound almost prophetic.

The children do not wear hand-me-downs. Their bedrooms are suites with bathrooms lighted by chandeliers and with walk-in closets. Byrd and Melanie give their children only the best. To them, all their children are perfect.

Thoughts and Commentary
So we have this very loving couple who have dedicated their lives to caring for children others don't want. They give them a first class home with two parents, a caretaker who helps out and the children are treated like the Billings' own.

Then, in the span of less than an hour, three sociopaths enter the home, one with eight children inside and, before they leave, they kill two extraordinary people. The only good thing is that none of the children were injured.

We can only surmise what happened for almost an hour inside that home. The criminals were likely looking for money or valuables in such a large home. It is likely that they were not gentle or polite in their demands either. Suffice it to say, that those who were there were probably subjected to an hour of terror at the hands of these three men.

It would be easy to sit here and say something stupid, like suggesting if either adult had been armed they might be alive today. That's simplistic and not realistic. With that many children in the home, many of them with Downs Syndrome or autistic, you'd most likely keep any firearms strictly secured for everyone's safety.

It would be equally stupid to say that if guns were banned this incident wouldn't have happened. Such a myopic view ignores the myriad ways three men could arm themselves with axes, machetes and other items to commit the same acts.

No, what I'm going to say is that this incident really proves a point that I have argued with anti-gun zealots for years. And that is that the concept of compliance and non-resistance can be fatal to the victim. Anti-gun lobbyists and police will point to statistics that say compliance is the safest thing to do.

But I posit that non-resistance and compliance puts you at the mercy of the criminal. What if that criminal has no mercy?

That's the big drawback. You may not know until it is too late. The person you are facing is a criminal, someone who does not feel bound to honor the laws of society. If he doesn't feel bound by laws against theft, robbery, rape, murder, et al, then neither are we bound to believe a word he says about us "not getting hurt" or letting us go.

Too many criminals today exhibit sociopathic tendencies. Big, burly 20-somethings that'll beat down a 101 year old woman for the $33 in her purse show their contempt for anyone but themselves. Recently a 20-year-old thug in our bay area beat up and robbed 12-year-old girl. But before walking off with the $9 she had, he used a rock to smash her teeth. Yeah, there are real men for you -- beating up the elderly and children.

The three thugs in the Billings case are another example. If there was even an ounce of empathy or consideration in their souls for other people, they would not have deliberately orphaned those children. But they lack any compassion for others and mercy, to them, is a weakness.

These guys are running a close second to Richard Allen Davis, the perverted sociopathic career criminal who kidnapped, raped and killed 12-year-old Polly Klaas in 1993. Davis was the poster-boy for California's 3-strikes law. Davis also told Klaas he wasn't going to hurt her.

I don't care what color these people are. I don't care what religion they follow (if any). I don't care if they were disadvantaged children. Nor do I care if their parents absused them. Killing the parents of so many children and knowing that they're going to orphan those kids is beyond comprehension.

Sheriff Morgan tells the media that this is a hum-dinger of a case and it has twists and turns worthy of a Hollywood movie. One media outlet surmised that because one suspect turned himself in, he must feel some remorse about the killings.

And, I don't care.

No child deserves to lose both their parents. Not like this. Especially children used to the patient love that comes from those rare few who can handle so many special needs children. Life is hard enough for these kids already. Depriving them of the love they've known is simply an act of sadistic cruelty.

I can think of a lot of creative ways that these three men could meet their maker. So far, the leading candidates are the 3,000-ft helicopter high-dive and being towed behind a boat as alligator bait in the Everglades. But I'm sure the Billings', being good and kind people, would have said the proper thing to do is let justice slowly grind along and do its job.

Condolences to the Billings family and requiescat in pax Byrd and Melanie.

One thing is for sure, though. More people will be willing to show mercy to these killers than they showed the Billings' family.

Comments? Suggestions? editor@handgunclub.com