THERE ARE SOME SECTIONS OF KNOXVILLE THAT I WOULD NOT ADVISE YOU TO INVADE (CONT’D):

State Sen. Tim Burchett says he caught a group of youngsters during a break-in Wednesday, held them at gunpoint and fed them chocolate-chip cookies until Knox County sheriff’s deputies arrived. . . .

The state senator, who said he holds a conceal-carry permit, had a recently purchased 9 mm Glock pistol and a .25 automatic Keltec as a “backup,” according to his account. He said he brandished the larger pistol and told the youths to “put your hands up” and then to “put your hands behind your head.”

“One of them said, ‘Well, which one do you want – hands up or behind the head?’ and I said, ‘Either one’,” Burchett said.

He said they waited about 15 minutes “in the rain and mud” for deputies to arrive. During the period, he said, the youths began talking – one of them basically admitting to the break-in – and he gave them some of the cookies that a friend had given him earlier in the day.

Burchett said he understood from the deputies that one of the youths was 18 years old and the others were juveniles. He said he intends to press charges, fearing that if punishment is left to parents “they might take away the GameBoy for one afternoon.”

On the other hand, Knoxville’s anti-gun mayor, Bill Haslam, is facing a boycott of his family’s Pilot Oil Company by people unhappy with his support for Mike Bloomberg and the Joyce Foundation.