What ever happened to Jacqueline Kennedy’s pink suit and matching pillbox hat?
And the hat? Sadly, it did not wind up on top of a cantaloupe honeydew melon in an episode of Penn and Teller’s “Bullshit”. Indeed, nobody knows for sure where the hat is…
A gun is a gun. It is designed to shoot things.
A gun is not an all purpose tool. A gun is not a club. A gun is not a prybar. A gun is not a bottle opener (the Galil aside). A gun is not a tool for breaking out windows.
Bad things can happen when you use your gun for things other than shooting. For example, if you use your gun to club someone (no matter how deserving) you may mar the finish. Blood does awful things to a gun’s finish, especially the beautiful bluing on older Smith and Wesson revolvers.
Hitting things with your gun can also bend parts. Then your gun won’t go off when you need for it to go off. As the great Peter Hathaway Capstick once said, “The most terrifying sound in nature is not the roar of a charging lion, nor the whistle of a descending bomb; rather it is a click when you expect a bang.”
But the worst thing that can happen is that your gun might go off when you don’t want to go off. (I’d almost be willing to argue with Capstick that the sound of a “bang” when you expect a “click” is even more terrifying. However, I haven’t spent much of my life hunting lion and elephant in Africa, more’s the pity.) For example, when you’re breaking out a car window.
Bad move, space cadet. (Edited to add: Just to make it clear for my readers outside Texas, “Humble” in this case is a city near-ish to Houston, not a description of the police officer.)
It’s a travesty! It’s a sham! It’s a mockery! It’s a travishamockery! All in this week’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback, after the jump…
By this story in the LAT about the arrest of rapper “40 Glocc” (sp?).
Specifically, we are amused by:
Things are still kind of up in the air, but improving slowly. In the meantime, have a handful of random crap:
Your Jack LaLanne obit from the NYT. And from the LAT.
Just for Lawrence, a review of the New World Center, designed by Frank Gehry.
Happy belated birthday, John Moses Browning.
The Pack is back, baby! (Mostly, I’m linking this for the font: may not be valid after 1/24. Did they drag the “Japs Attack Pearl Harbor!” font out of the Linotype case?)
Remember the case of the clerk who shot the beer thief? The one who got eight years probation for his murder and evidence tampering conviction?
Yeah. Well, there’s a follow-up to that story. You see, it turns out that the jury couldn’t do that.
So the judge tossed the verdict, and everybody involved made a deal. Romero pled out to manslaughter instead of murder, and got the same eight year probated sentence.
I would have preferred to see a retrial, and a fight at the appellate level if Romero was convicted again. But I can’t blame Romero and his lawyers for taking the deal.
Someone who can claim credit in the comments (or send me an email if they want) suggested a T-shirt:
Front: “One down, 534 to go.”
Back: “Wearing this t-shirt is cause for revoking your civil rights. At least in Massachusetts.”
I don’t have time to work on the design (the personal situation I alluded to in an earlier post is not improving as rapidly as I would like) but if someone does want to take the ball and run with it…I would suggest that any proceeds go into TJIC’s legal fund.
We generally do not read the Huffington Post, although we do not react to it in the same way we react to that wretched hive of scum and stupidity known as Salon. However, we wanted to make note of this article, even though it has been thoroughly linked and blogged elsewhere:
We especially wanted to make note of this article in light of another recent event. Supporter and sometime commenter on this blog TJIC had his Massachusetts firearms license suspended over postings on his blog. Yes, you read that correctly: Jay G. has a more detailed account, which also preempts much of the commentary I would otherwise offer on this subject.
TJIC’s commentary may be disagreeable, even reprehensible to some. But if being disagreeable and running contrary to popular opinion was a reason to revoke someone’s civil rights, where would we be today? Jay says it better that we can:
Or how does it make you feel to know that Martin Luther King was denied the ability to defend himself and his family, because he was black and unpopular?
Can we get an “Amen!” for Brother Jay?
Is it possible to be a football atheist? Plus Easterbrookian ignorance about guns and stealing jokes from FARK. All in this week’s TMQ after the jump…
It is well known that I am an unabashed Smith and Wesson fanboy.
I will not be purchasing one of these, thank you very much.
I already have a S&W that shoots .45 LC, and while I’d like to add a .45 ACP revolver to the collection, it won’t be one that looks like it has been knighted with the ugly stick. I also don’t have a burning desire for a handgun that shoots .410 shells. (The Circuit Judge actually does have a small amount of appeal to me, but there are a lot of long guns higher on the list, like the Ruger Scout Rifle or something in .45-70. I think the reason the Circuit Judge appeals is that it doesn’t look as ugly as I originally expected it to be. Then again, the Uberti revolving rifles are also attractive.)
(Hattip: Tam.)
We previously blogged about the local store clerk who was charged with murder after shooting at a fleeing thief who’d stolen a 12-pack. The thief was found dead in an abandoned car a few hours later, and the clerk apparently tried to cover his tracks after the shooting.
The clerk was just convicted of murder and evidence tampering.
We repeat what we said at the time, “If you had a good reason for shooting, the evidence is only going to help you. Altering or destroying evidence only makes you look bad.” And it will probably get you convicted.
Edited to add: The jury that was deadlocked for several days does not appear to have had much trouble returning a sentence; eight years probation.
Both of these broke yesterday, but I was waiting until I found some better sources before posting:
Peter Yates, director. Lawrence and I were discussing his rather interesting career yesterday. Yates directed such films as Bullit, The Dresser, Breaking Away, and The Friends of Eddie Coyle. He also directed The Deep, Mother, Jugs & Speed, and Krull. (And let’s not forget The Hot Rock, one of the better adaptations of a Donald Westlake Dortmunder novel.) (LAT obit.)
Richard Winters, of Band of Brothers fame. (WP obit.)
I haven’t had much to say about events in Arizona, and probably won’t. Other people are covering this much better than I am; you can pretty much click on any blog in my blogroll for commentary. If you have to pick one, Battleswarm seems to be doing good roundups.