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Freedom-loving Americans generally say to themselves: “what is safe for my family?” They make decisions based on everything they know. A police officer would say that he is in business to defend the innocent against criminals and idiots. The lady who decides to leave her baby in a car for over an hour at 3:30am - outside a pool hall no less - is a reckless idiot. If I were a police officer I’d call CPS and haul her ass off. But someone who leaves a guarded, sleeping baby in the car for a few minutes is probably not an idiot... Just someone busy who has made a calculated decision about his/her charge. In this case, were I a police officer, and even just as a citizen, I would keep an eye on the baby for safety’s sake, and truth be told possibly greet the parent upon return and say something like: “be careful, you never know if there’s some loony baby snatcher around,” and let that be that.

Freedom comes with responsibility. That’s what we like about it, and it’s better ho have both than neither. Our nanny state is indeed filled with busybodies and know-it-alls, but just a small part of that is because we do indeed care a great deal for our youngest and most innocent citizens. For instance, who can say for sure when coming across a baby in a truck with a dog that the parent has not been incapacitated in some way? After a ten-minute wait or so I could see even myself getting worried and perhaps calling the police. I don’t like to think I’m a busybody, but I probably would wait around.

And there’s the difference;

*You* would hang around at a watchful distance and possibly call the cops if needed.

You would *not* attempt to break and enter a vehicle.

It’s known that I have issues with non-parents “touching” children but were it my child or my dog, I would instantly assume that any attempt to get hold of either one was an invitation to grave bodily harm.

We all remember Adam Walsh.

His mom ‘looked away’ for a moment and he was gone.

Did that little boy’s murderer tell other store patrons that he’d ‘found an unattended child and was just doing the right thing and taking him to the cops’ or whatever?

I’ve found a few unattended kids in my time.

I told them they were okay and that we’d find mom/dad and took them to the store’s service center where the person working bellowed their names over the loudspeaker.

And then I waited until the parents showed up because I don’t -know- the people running the service counter and I wanted to see if whomever showed up to claim the child was actually somebody the child _knew and was glad to see_.

Unless you’ve had the misfortune to experience what child abusers are capable of, you have *no* idea how incredibly clever they can be and how saintly they can appear.

Some of them actively cruise parking lots looking for ‘unattended kids in cars’.

And stores.

And playgrounds.

And church hallways.

Any place you can name, they’ll be there...waiting...and watching.