Gunnuttery category archive

Chauncey Devega predicts the pontificating. Here’s a nugget; click to read the rest:

Or if they were truly brave and responsible, our leaders could point out an obvious fact: in violent societies where there is ready access to firearms (and apparently military grade tear gas and incendiary devices) there will be moments when mentally unhinged people kill lots of people. We choose to either accept that bargain–and its moments where the banality of evil makes itself apparent and clear–or to reject it and subsequently to modify our laws and social compact.

Instead, James Holmes’ apparent killing of a dozen people, and wounding 59 others as he was channeling the Batman character The Joker, who is not coincidentally “The Clown Prince of Chaos,” will prompt a moral panic about popular culture, comic books, movies, and violence. This is an old and tired script.

I stayed away from the Aurora, Colorado, shootings yesterday, having learned to avoid jumping to conclusions. And, really, what could I add?

If you want to read about it, your best bet for the latest is their local rag.

I suspect that, as the smoke clears, it will turn out to be just another nut with guns exercising his Constitutional right to nuttery, inflicting pain and suffering on anyone in range just because he can.

For another view on gunnuttery and how we talk about it, I recommend this.

Have fun in the summer, but, please, do so politely.

Officers were called to the 300 block of Fox Hill Road at about 1:40 a.m. in reference to a shooting and upon their arrival discovered the home had been shot multiple times, said Cpl. Jason Price, police spokesman, in a news release.

A few minutes later, police received a call about shots fired in the first block of Cummings Avenue. Upon officers’ arrival, they found three homes and vehicle parked in front of one of the homes had been shot multiple times, Price said.

Stupid, but polite:

The largest wildfire burning in Arizona was started during a bachelor party when one shotgun-toting celebrant fired a shell that promises to shoot “100 feet of fire, setting everything in its path ablaze,” The Smoking Gun has learned.

12-gauge shells–pop-gun smarts.

The Chicago Trib rounds up some random (and sometimes amusing) facts about firearms.

Among them is this nugget:

Clement Vallandigham, a former Ohio congressman, served as an attorney in 1871 defending a suspect accused of a barroom murder. Vallandigham theorized that the victim had in fact shot himself by accident while trying to pull a handgun out of his pants pocket. Conferring with colleagues in a hotel room, Vallandigham acted out his theory. He believed he was using an unloaded gun in his demonstration; he was wrong. But he was right about a gun going off accidentally; it did, and it killed him.

Plus ca change.

A polite bedside manner is necessary:

Willis had surgery on his foot and his nurse stopped by to change his bandages.

“She picked her medical bag up and then we heard a little popping noise,” Willis said. “She turned and told me she had been shot. She started to fall and I caught her. Then I got a handful of gauze and put it on her.”

This was in a rural area where target practice is common.

Folks, even a .22 short will carry for over a mile. Bullets are dumb, so shooters need to be smart.

Too many of them are dumber than the damn bullets.

Teach your children, politely:

A neighbor speaking on condition of anonymity told WAVY.com how the scene unfolded, “The father of the baby, the mother and the other man everybody was arguing. The father went back out to his car and got a gun and he shot up. He’s downstairs. He shot up. He didn’t mean to shoot his baby, but he just shot up and shot the baby.”

Gun nut fantasies: Every city Dodge City, Every hill Boot Hill:

From the description:

According to a new study from Texas A&M University – the ALEC and Wal-Mart backed “stand your ground, shoot first” laws across the country do not deter crime like proponents say they do – but in fact cause more of it. The study’s authors argue that “stand your ground, shoot first” laws increase the chances of murder or manslaughter “by lowering the expected costs associated with using lethal force.”

Noz wonders whether taking out such a policy could be prima facie evidence of premeditation.

Noz has a point, methinks.

These folks dream that every city is Dodge City, every hill is Boot Hill, and each one of them is Marshall Killin’; they are willing to pay for the dream.

Apparently, shot just because he was there:

A hitchhiker researching a book on “The Kindness of America” is currently recovering in hospital after a gun-toting truck driver gave him a small donation of some searing hot lead.

Ray Dolin, was hitching on Highway 2 in Montana on Saturday as part of a project to produce a memoir on the great things about the open road in the big country.

Dolin was sitting on his backpack, just west of of the town of Glasgow early Saturday evening when a pickup truck slowed down.

However, rather than extending the offer of a ride, the driver extended a gun out of the window and shot Dolin in the arm.

(snip)

“It appears to be a random shooting. We don’t know exactly what caused him to do it. He just drove up and shot him,” Valley County Sheriff Glen Meier said.

The shooter was eventually apprehended.

For the true gun nut, “Stand Your Ground” means getting away with murder.

Via Noz.

In your face polite.

A 24-year-old Thornton man was killed in the early hours of Memorial Day at a campground in Boulder County, authorities say.

(snip)

The man was camping with friends and acquaintances at the Olive Ridge campground northwest of Boulder when he shot himself in the face at 1:15 a.m., Oehlkers said.

It would appear from this story that this gun somehow accidentally fired itself. No one seems to know where it came from; it seems to have been on a lone rampage (much more at the link).

An Arkansas man assumed the boy wrapped in a blanket on his futon was his sleeping cousin. But hours later he realized it was a 14-year-old boy he didn’t know who, police determined Thursday, had been shot while playing with a gun with a friend.

Little Rock police said the boy, TyJuan Woodard, died after he and a 13-year-old friend were playing with a gun that accidentally fired and shot him in the chest Wednesday.

Stand your ground at Mickey D’s:

In a bid to cut the line at a McDonald’s drive-thru, a Florida man allegedly pulled a gun on other motorists seeking some fast food, police allege.

Aside:

Absolutely nothing from McDonald’s is worth a parking ticket, let alone a jail term.

Why are some persons so appalled at the possibility–and it’s only a possibility at this point–that Trayvon Martin fought back against the armed attacker who had been stalking him with malicious intent?

One can imagine the comment were the colors reversed.

• Victim courageously defends self . . .
• Last desparate battle . . .
• Zimmerman’s* last stand . . .

Furrfu.

__________________
*Remember, I said “reversed.”

Politeness on the way to school:

Police in an Atlanta suburb are escorting school buses and guarding students at bus stops after a man aimed a rifle at a bus with children on board and dropped a notebook that listed bus numbers.

The man fled when witnesses confronted him Monday morning, but police recovered the rifle and notebook at the scene in a subdivision south of Atlanta.

A witness saw the man pointing the rifle at a passing school bus, Clayton County police Officer Phong Nguyen said.

I’ve said for a long time that gunnuttery has nothing to do with rights and everything to do with–er–stimulation.

I rest my case.

Truly vile:

An unidentified entrepreneur admits he is trying to profit off Trayvon Martin’s death by selling gun range targets featuring the teen who’s death has sparked a nationwide controversy.

Although Martin’s face does not appear on the paper targets, they feature a hoodie with crosshairs aimed at the chest. A bag of Skittles is tucked in the pocket and a hand is holding a can resembling iced tea.

Via Bob Cesca.

The absurdity of gunnuttery on review (as the newsreels used to say). Let’s call it “the Dillinger Defense.”

Florida’s much-maligned “stand your ground” law was put to yet another test Friday when a teenage defendant facing trial for attempted murder asked a judge to throw out the case because he said he shot his drug dealer out of fear for his life.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Details at the link.

Aside:

If you’re too young to know about newsreels . . . .