Big .22 Rifle for Christmas is the seventh episode of the second season of the 1951 live action police fiction series Dragnet. With the episode itself airing on 1952 December 19. As with every episode of series the story is a true case only with the names of those involved, including the officers (replaced with the fictional Joe Friday and Frank Smith), being changed.
Plot[]
Summary[]
When a local boy in Los Angeles goes missing blood indicates that the boy may be in grave danger. Worse still another local boy has also gone missing. Joe Friday and Frank Smith investigate, confirming that the blood could belong to either boy as both of them are Type O Positive. It's only after one of the boys returns home that they get answers. One of them had learned that his parents had gotten him a rifle for Christmas and the other convinced him to get it so they could play with it. Eventually the boy whose gift the rifle was meant to be was convinced to let the other have their turn with it and while running through the woods behind their home the boy tripped over a root and the rifle went off, striking his heart. After being led to the body the officers confirm the account of what happened based on body's wounds. When asked by Joe what the boy was doing while everyone was looking for him the boy says that he was praying, praying that God would bring his friend back to life. After the coroner gives permission to have the body moved to the boy's home the father returns and is given the sad news. After crying over the boy's body and relaying all the presents they had gotten him the father asks who the other boy was and once told goes off to the boy's house. The officers follow not sure what the father has in mind, and in a moment of sympathy the father forgives the other boy for what happened. The father decides that since the boys where friends the living one should have the presents, he had intended for his own son. Frank Smith is moved by this gesture, and after the boy and parents have left, asks Joe what that proves. Joe however isn't feeling the holiday spirit and bluntly replies; "That you don't get a child a rifle for Christmas."