A Responsible Gun Owner Thanksgiving
With the annual Harvest Feast nearly upon us, when we give thanks for all our blessings, especially the Second Amendment, which makes all other blessings possible, let's take a quick look at how America's Responsible Gun Owners are keeping themselves safe from crime and preventing tyranny.
In St. Louis, Missouri, 26-year-old Becca Campbell was riding in a car and waving a gun around, joking to her boyfriend, who was driving, that she was "ready for Ferguson." The boyfriend, apparently one of those liberal gun-haters who are afraid of mere objects, ducked to avoid the gun, and then rear-ended another car. Campbell's gun discharged and she was hit in the head, and she later died at a hospital.
The boyfriend told police that the couple purchased the gun because they feared unrest that may arise from a grand jury decision in the fatal shooting of unarmed black teen Michael Brown by a white police officer, the sources said.
Police were investigating whether the boyfriend's account of the shooting was correct, the sources told CNN.
As of this morning, Stupidest Man on the Internet Jim Hoft, who has been running story after story for the past two weeks about "black mobs" and the "Ferguson mob" had not yet blamed the death on the climate of fear engendered by scary black people.
In Tallahassee, Florida, a Responsible Gun Owner, Curtis Wade Holley, 53, set fire to his home, then ambushed and shot at Leon County Sheriff's deputies arriving on the scene, killing one deputy and wounding another before being shot and killed by return fire from deputies and Tallahassee police. Authorities said that Holley held "anti-government, anti-establishment" beliefs, although they didn't provide any details of those beliefs, or of the previous threats they said he had made toward law enforcement. Holley was at least well-known enough to local law enforcement that his name and address had been flagged in a police computer system, but dispatchers didn't alert responders to that warning because the address on the emergency call was that of a next-door neighbor who called 911 after seeing flames coming from Holley's house.
Obviously, the scandal here is that the police are keeping track of a Patriot's political views, whatever they happen to be -- it's getting to where you can't threaten jackbooted authority figures without them targeting you for surveillance. We're going to go way out on a limb and assume he was a sovereign citizen loon, although since nothing's been specified, he may well be another of those liberal mass-murderers we keep hearing about. (Also, in all seriousness: kudos to the wounded deputy, whose name hasn't been released -- he was shot by Holley as he moved to warn firefighters to stay away from the scene, and only survived because he was wearing a bulletproof vest.)
A three-year-old suffered life-threatening injuries after being shot in the mouth while he and a four-year-old played with a gun in a bedroom of his dad's home in Lake Stevens, Washington. The boy's father, Responsible Gun Owner Jon Holzworth, is "in the internet security and firearms businesses." According to a TV report, Holzworth told Snohomish County deputies that
he heard a loud boom and ran to the bedroom where his son, Michael, and his neighbor's 4-year-old grandson were playing.
He forced the locked door open and initially thought his son had gotten hurt that way.
The teevee station reports that Holzworth's home has a sign at the front door reading "'We don't dial 9-1-1' with a metal cutout of a pistol dangling below." KING-TV reports that Holzworth told a reporter that he keeps his guns locked up, and did not know how the 4-year-old neighbor got a hold of the weapon. He texted the reporter with this statement:
"Yes, all fire arms (sic) are locked up, gun safety is paramount and number one rule in our home we take it very seriously, I'm devastated and can only give glory to God for my son's life being sparred (sic).
"Guns are not toys in our home, even nurf (sic) type, even squirt guns are not used in a playful manor (sic).
"He is my only son who I love more than my own life. I've always been very careful With (sic) firearms, I never in a million years would have thought this would happen to us and it's devastating to our family. What we need is prayers and support. We love God and we know that without his intervention we could have lost a loving and caring child."
The pastor of a neighborhood church that has been distributing gun locks said, however, that the 3-year-old's grandmother had just picked up "whole bunch of locks" last Sunday to give to Holzworth, her son-in-law, which suggests his assertion that "all guns are locked up" is at best a recent, and perhaps incomplete assessment of the security situation at the Responsible Gun Owner's home. So maybe he didn't get to all of them. It can be hard to keep track. It's also not entirely clear why Holzworth would let two preschoolers play unsupervised in a house full of guns, but as he says, he definitely told the kid that guns aren't toys, so let's not be too harsh on him: it's not his fault if a 3-year-old won't listen to clear safety instructions.
And in a story that isn't quite about real gun owners and how they responsibly protect themselves and our liberty from an out-of-control federal government, but is perhaps related to the fact that there are armed citizens everywhere, a 12-year-old boy in Cleveland, Ohio, was shot to death Saturdayby police who thought the kid had a semiautomatic handgun -- it was a realistic-looking Airsoft replica from which the orange "this is a toy" tip had been removed. This isn't the actual toy weapon, but it's similar:
The 911 caller had specified that the gun may have been fake, but it's not clear whether that detail was relayed to the police by dispatchers. You'd think they'd mention that.
When the two officers arrived, the boy did not point the weapon at them or otherwise threaten them, Deputy Chief Ed Tomba of the Cleveland Division of Police told reporters early Sunday.
But he did reach for the weapon, Tomba said.
"The officers ordered him to stop and to show his hands and he went into his waistband and pulled out the weapon," he said.
We're not sure which of several factors to be more disgusted by: the trigger-happy cops, the (possible) failure to pass on the information that the gun was fake, the fact that hyper-realistic replicas of guns are sold at all, or the idiot gun culture that makes kids think waving around a toy gun is cool. How about just the fact that a 12-year-old with a toy is dead for no good reason? That's plenty.
Tonight, tonight... it's hard to resist a feeling of infinite sadness. We only come out at night. By starlight stumbling over the scorched earth. Saw the muzzle flash of that bullet with butterfly wings. Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage. Sometimes I wish I was back in 1979. Farewell and goodnight. May you soon be in the arms of sleep.
I know that one probably healthy way to deal with the shock and the anger that is brought on by reading these stories is to respond with sarcasm. Reading the good snarky comments of others here helps (it really does), but as much as I wish I could, I just can't summon the ability myself to respond in like fashion when I read stories like these. I just feel very sad about them. No matter how much I read about how careless, irresponsible or complacent the gun owners were, all I think about are how much of a tragedy each one represents, not only for the victim(s) and the survivors, but for the gun owners and the policemen as well. I also think about what it must be like to be one of the witnesses, or to be a first responder to such incidents. I just feel sick, and there is no way to make that horror go away.Undoubtedly everyone else here feels the same way.
There isn't just one victim, or a handful of victims, or even a dozen or two victims when such incidents occur. There are 320 million victims in just this country alone, because these tragedies inflict real harm on all of us every single time they occur. If more Americans started acknowledging this then we might finally have the motivation to stand up to the gun lobby. We can't wait for our representatives to do it -- we have to do it first. One way to start is to frankly admit how much these incidents harm us, even those of us who are far removed from the immediate scene. And then we need to immediately turn that pain into action.
Tell the open carry absolutists and the NRA how much they hurt you. Tell them. Put the blame where it belongs. If that isn't enough, imagine that these individuals just personally shouted obscenities at your wife or husband, your parents, your brother or sister, your kids. Because they have.