Never, ever underestimate the capacity of young men for stupidity. Testosterone is the most potent poison known to man. Even in small doses, this horrible stuff can indeed be lethal. 

What Happened

At 5:25 PM on 31 December 1986, 30-year-old Barry Rollins of Brooklyn, New York, was sitting in coach aboard United Airlines Flight 1502 out of Wilmington, North Carolina. The Boeing 737 was traveling light carrying only sixteen passengers and five crewmembers. As the plane was on short final into Raleigh-Durham Airport, Mr. Rollins watched eagerly out the window. His plan was to catch a separate flight into New York City and make it to Times Square in time to see the ball drop for the New Year.

The plane was two miles south of the airport and roughly twenty seconds from touchdown. With the aircraft about 300 feet off the ground, a .30-caliber bullet pierced the bottom of the fuselage, passed through Rollins’ right thigh, and then lodged in the left side of his face. Rollins felt as though he had been struck with a baseball bat. Fragments of the round ended up behind his left ear.

The pilot landed the aircraft without incident. He had been unaware anything was amiss. Mr. Rollins was rushed to the local hospital where he underwent surgery and spent several days recovering. United Airlines covered all of his medical costs and flew his three brothers and two sisters in from New York to be at his bedside.

Poor Misled People

As you might imagine, the world pretty much came unglued over that. Wake County Commissioner Merrie R. Hedrick was quoted as having said, “It is just another in a long list of cases that point out to me that we need to do something about the county gun ordinances. It would certainly seem to me that if people were shooting that close by, it was just a question of when something would happen.”

A point of personal privilege–Let that sink in for a second. Wake County Commissioner Merrie R. Hedrick actually thought that the way to keep people from shooting at passing airliners was to pass more gun control laws. Wow. That must be a fascinating place to live. In my world, the sort of idiot who might take a potshot at a passing airliner is unlikely to be dissuaded by yet more anti-gun legislation.

G. Eric Shuford, the president of the Sir Walter Raleigh Gun Club, had this to say in response, “Whoever perpetrated such an act should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Don’t restrict all the responsible hunters and responsible firearm owners because of one stupid act by one person.” That seems pretty logical to me.

The 1980’s were fairly tame, relatively speaking. When this event happened Osama bin Laden was 29 years old and not yet a raving homicidal maniac. Back then the androgynous singer Boy George could still actually shock people. It was, in short, a very different time. Special Agent Richards of the local FBI office said, “We’ve got so many wackos in the world, you never know. It would be a tragic thing. I just hope it doesn’t give any loonies out there an idea.”

The Idiot Who Shot A Plane

Robert Raymond Proulx was a 23-year-old unemployed construction worker who was out hunting at the time the airplane flew over. It’s tough to get your head around what possessed him to take a potshot at a passing airliner, but one of his buddies apparently anonymously ratted him out later. Proulx was arrested within a week of the incident.

When you shoot an innocent guy in a passing airliner it is tough to put a positive spin on that. Proulx knew he was doomed. Once the details of the case became apparent he pled guilty to the charge of damaging an aircraft. This got him out of the worse charge of using a firearm to damage an aircraft. I’m not a lawyer. I have no idea how the American legal system actually works.

Regardless, Proulx still faced a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a quarter-million-dollar fine. For his part, Proulx claimed via his attorney that the weapon had discharged accidentally. He actually said, “I was checking my rifle when it fired. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.” Really? I was born at night, but not last night. That seems pretty thin to me. Apparently, the judge in the case was not swayed by this explanation, either.

What cinched the deal was Proulx’s rat buddy. He later testified that Proulx had actually been trying to hit the pilot. The man’s statement was, “He had committed the above-described act and that he had been aiming for the pilot.” It would have been far better had Proulx been drunk. As it was, he was just without excuse.

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All this legal stuff unfolded in February of 1987, some six weeks or so after the event. US District Court Judge Terrence Boyle presided over the sentencing hearing. US Attorney Peter Kellen said, “It was our belief that the defendant in this case was someone whose conduct was wanton and callous. We were not aware of any remorse or concern shown by the defendant for what he had done, and it was our position that an individual of this nature, in order to protect society, needs to be taken off the streets for as long as the law allows.″

In May of that year, Robert Proulx was formally sentenced to twenty years in prison. He was also ordered to pay $33,300 in restitution to the airline to cover the medical bills of the man he shot. Considering the poor guy had multiple surgeries and a substantial inpatient stay, that seems like a bargain. Nowadays in most modern hospitals 33 grand likely wouldn’t cover much more than your ghastly meals and those squeezie things they put on your feet.

The following year Proulx was growing weary of being in prison and appealed to have his sentence reduced. This appeal was rejected for being outside of some timely filing window. As I said, I don’t begin to understand the American legal system.

The Gun – A Winchester Rifle

News reports filed after the event described Proulx’s gun as a Winchester Model 74 in .30-30. The Winchester 74 was actually a semiautomatic tube-fed sporting rifle chambered in .22 rimfire. It was produced from 1938 until 1955. 406,574 copies were manufactured. I am fairly certain the gun in question would have been a Model 94. The Winchester 94 was the archetypal .30-30 lever-action deer rifle. Media types seem congenitally incapable of getting gun stuff right.

The Winchester 94 was designed by John Moses Browning in, you guessed it, 1894. Those first guns were chambered in either .32-40 or .32-55 Winchester, both black powder rounds. In 1895 the Model 94 was offered in .30 Winchester Center Fire. This was the first commercially successful rifle chambered for a smokeless cartridge. Over time the .30 WCF became known as the .30-30.

The Model 1894 was produced by Winchester Repeating Arms until 1980 and then offered by US Repeating Arms under the Winchester banner until 2006. Well over seven million copies were produced. Newly-manufactured reproductions remain on the market today.

The Model 94 was the first sporting rifle to sell more than 7 million units. The millionth rifle was gifted to President Calvin Coolidge. Serial number 1.5 million went to President Harry S. Truman. The two millionth gun was given to President Dwight Eisenhower. If somebody gave a gun to our current President I’m not convinced that would end well. My, haven’t times changed?

The US government bought 1,800 commercial Model 94 rifles along with 50,000 rounds of .30-30 ammunition for use by ground troops during WW1. These rifles were marked with a “US” and the flaming bomb of the Ordnance Department. I rather suspect these GI-issue lever guns would be fairly spendy in collector’s circles today. The British Royal Navy bought another 5,000 of the rifles for use in shipboard security and mine-clearing operations. The French purchased 15,100 Model 94s, but their guns sported left-sided sling mounts and adjustable rear sights marked in meters. 

The Model 94 was offered with either a 20, 24, or 26-inch barrel. Magazine capacities for each of these configurations was 7, 8, and 9 rounds respectively. The 20-inch gun was the most popular. This version weighed 6.8 pounds and was 38 inches long overall.

Ruminations

I don’t know where you stand on the subject of prison as either punishment or rehabilitation. I’m typically a pretty forgiving guy. Jesus forgave me of a great deal, and I try to return the favor whenever possible. However, some people are just too dangerous to be allowed to wander about unsupervised.

A 20-year prison sentence for a 23-year-old is an undeniable life-wrecker. There’s no getting around that. However, shooting at a passing airliner is pretty extra special stupid as well. The fact that he connected is fairly impressive, I guess, but that still doesn’t seem like a terribly marketable skill, particularly in 1986.

With the gear down and the flaps set at thirty degrees, a Boeing 737 sports a final approach speed of 140 knots indicated. That’s about 162 miles per hour. Considering our hero fired at a slant range of about 300 feet and was apparently aiming for the cockpit he apparently just didn’t lead the plane far enough. The end result had he been a slightly better wing shooter would have been cataclysmic.

I never found out what happened to Robert Proulx. He should obviously be out of prison by now. He’d be about sixty today. Apparently, the man he shot, Barry Rollins, fully recovered. It was announced that he planned to seek civil damages, but an unemployed carpenter remanded to prison for two decades is likely not a terribly lucrative mark for a plaintiff’s attorney. Perhaps he sued the airline, but for what exactly? It hardly seems like negligence that you witlessly flew over a homicidal moron on the final approach into Raleigh-Durham. That just seems more like random testosterone poisoning to me. 

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