I recently had a discussion with a well-educated friend. She’s articulate, opinionated and unafraid to share her perspectives. She believes the world would be better off without guns. She is also of the opinion that an individual should have to prove they have the right to carry a gun (“may issue”), rather than the putting … Read more
BOO. Are you scared yet? Nah, I didn’t think so. But this is the time of year that our thoughts turn to the dark side of things, and I’ve been wondering about just what scares me, and “us,” by extension. And the answers I’ve come up with – both the “what” and the “why” surprised me.
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“Underwhelmed” is an understatement. More like “scared,” “angry,” “panicked,” and “pissed off.” In fly-over country, it’s not often you see exotic wild animals coming over your fence and heading for your house. Well, unless you’re Noah. Or something. But that is indeed what happened in Zanesville, Ohio, when a private zoo owner decided to let his menagerie go, and subsequently eat a gun.
The perp walk. If ever there was a made-for-TV moment, that’s got to be it. Seeing some formerly powerful figure, paraded before the cameras in a shiny new matching pair of off-the-rack, chrome bracelets is Must-See-TV in anybody’s book. Seeing an agency head subjected to that kind of humiliation is just icing on the cake. What with the nation’s top cop, Attorney General Eric Holder, likely facing some Congressional hearings/falling on his sword for his boss/criminal and civil charges over the death of one or more law enforcement agents, it made me think back to a time when I was able to cover such a story, up-close and personal. It’s a tale of cops, guns, and murder-for-hire.
In the 1950s, a student of his offered my dad 10% ownership in a company that planned to criss-cross the Continental United States in a plane outfitted with a Geiger counter, to look for Uranium. For $10,000. That was all the money my folks had in the bank. He passed. They discovered the largest uranium deposit in the USA. So I’m not the one to follow when it comes to predictions. But I’ll got out on a limb here and predict that I will never, EVER get caught with a loaded gun in my bag when I fly. And I’ll bet that if you follow the one simple rule that I do, neither will you . . .
Teach Your Children Well. If you grew up around the same decade I did, the harmonies of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s song about parenting ought to be rattling ‘round your brain right about now. The song represents some interesting ironies as well as some stark dichotomies. As folk-rockers go, you could hardly ask to find a more left-wing, anti-war, anti-Conservative bunch than CSN&Y. On the other hand, you’d be hard-pressed to find another group with a prominent member who’d done hard time for handgun possession (not to mention his whole “Things go better with Coke” philosophy.) But I come not to bury Crosby today, but to point out that many, if not all of the life lessons I learned as a child, I learned playing with (toy) guns.
I swear, sometimes these stories just write themselves, with news falling like manna from Heaven. THIS is one of those stories. According to CNN.com, Law enforcement officials in Hudspeth County, Texas have sworn-in actor/martial artiste/musician extraordinaire/acclaimed egomaniac/accused wife, girlfriend & female staff-beater/professional asshole Steven Segal as a deputy sheriff. According to the San Antonio Express, he will “help to control the U.S.-Mexico border. Honestly, I don’t know where to begin…
For conceal carry types, the search for the perfect holster is akin to the search for the Holy Grail. Only not as funny as the Monty Python version. Expensive too. (Although, if you’ve priced a brace of tickets to the Broadway show, we’re probably talking about a similar amount of money when it comes to … Read more
I am a child of Television. It’s true. Most kids first words are “Mama!” or “Da-da!” Mine was “Popeye.” I am not making this up. I grew up on a steady diet not of ABCs and phonics, but of ABC, NBC, and CBS. I watched everything from Captain Kangaroo and Kukla, Fran and Ollie, to Eliot Ness and Matt Dillon. As such, I was intimately acquainted with guns. Six guns. Shotguns. Lever action carbines. Tommy guns. You name it, and I saw it on TV. And of course, growing up in the 1960s, guns were a regular part of my play. I had that Mattel belt buckle with a derringer in it, where if I pushed out my stomach, I could flip it out and fire it at the bad guys. I had a Mattel M-16 Marauder (a.k.a. a toy M-16/AR-15). I even had a toy Thompson submachine gun. So riddle me this, Batman: why did it take until I hit my mid-forties, before I bought my first handgun and learned how to shoot?
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