FEISTY OLDSTER

70-year-old man wrestles down one suspect, shoots at others

"The message was clear, and it was delivered by a feisty 70-year-old man twice in one night last week. That message -- I refused to be victimized. Robert Gillum thwarted a pair of burglary attempts Wednesday in his Douglas Avenue [Chillicother, OH] home, sending the would-be thieves scurrying away without any money."




HEAPS OF GUNS, LOW CRIME

"Patricia Cantrall, nicknamed the "Annie Oakley of Modoc County," straps her .38 backward on her left hip. "I prefer the cross draw," said the gregarious 65-year-old county supervisor and part-time cafe waitress. Cantrall and about 270 fellow residents of this sparsely populated corner of northeastern California routinely carry concealed handguns. When it comes to packing heat - at least legally - no other county in the state surpasses Modoc. According to state Department of Justice statistics, about one in 29 residents here has a concealed-weapons permit. That compares with one in 800 residents for the rest of the state.

Modoc County issues almost as many permits as Los Angeles County - which has more than 50 times more people. Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has approved only 377 permits, mostly for judges, prosecutors, public defenders and retired federal agents.

Modoc County Sheriff Bruce Mix says he feels comfortable with the high number of guns because he knows most of the county's 9,400 residents. "I pretty much know who is reliable and who is not," said Mix, 57, the head lawman and coroner here since 1988. Besides, Mix said, he doesn't have enough deputies to adequately patrol the vast reaches of woods, desert and lava fields that cover the county's 3,944 square miles.

Mix said he believes everybody who lives in his county has a constitutional right to self-protection. But bearing arms here appears to have little to do with fear of crime or violent confrontations with humans. Often, said Undersheriff Mark Gentry, people seek to arm themselves before venturing to large California cities. "Someone will come in," said Gentry, "and say, 'I'm going to San Diego, I need a gun.' "....

In the Surprise Valley, across the Warner range from Alturas, John Estill, 45, is a sixth-generation Californian and owner of the sprawling Bare Ranch. The property, which includes thousands of acres of deeded land in California and Nevada and holds grazing permits to more than a million acres in the surrounding hills and desert, is one of the biggest in the state.

"Everybody up here has guns," Estill said. He pointed to a visiting reporter and photographer: "It's just like you have a pen and you have a camera." Estill supplies guns to shepherds he brings in on special immigration visas from Peru to manage his sheep in the high mountain ranges. As he spoke, ranch hand Duane Herbert pulled up in a pickup, wearing a broad, flat-brimmed hat and a .32 magnum on his hip. Herbert said he uses his gun to kill rattlesnakes, coyotes and other creatures he encounters in the mountains......

Records kept by the state attorney general's office indicate that violent crimes occur here at less than one-third the rate in Los Angeles County. According to FBI statistics, there was only one homicide in Modoc County from 1993 through 2002. Sheriff Mix says the county averages about one "questionable death a year, including suicide."

A permit allows a person over 21, not previously convicted of a felony, to carry a concealed, short-barreled, loaded weapon anywhere in the state. In counties with fewer than 200,000 residents, the weapon may be openly displayed.

County Supervisor Cantrall, who serves as postmaster in the ranching community of Likely when she's not working at the Likely Cafe, said she first obtained a concealed-weapons permit 22 years ago for protection when she traveled to San Francisco and Sacramento. She said she also carries it when she rides horses in the mountains because, "I do not care to be dinner for a wonderful mountain lion." So far, she said, she has used her weapon to kill snakes, coyotes and one very aggressive badger.

"People up here were born and raised with firearms," said George Wistos, 70, owner of the Belligerent Duck, a gun and outdoor goods shop in Alturas. "To them it's a tool." Wistos said that lately he's been selling a lot of lightweight handguns to women who jog alone along mountain trails.

More here