If you spent yesterday huddled in a corner with a bottle of vodka, crying and depressed about all of the massacre and death news that this weekend has brought us so far, well ... you might want to get a refill on that drink.
We've been paying close attention over the last few years to the descent of Arizona from booming, comfortable retiree chain-store colony to foreclosed stucco race-warring hellscape, a bitterly dystopian prank from God where the only laws that exist are ones that Steven Seagal can enforce from a tank for his dumb reality TV show. It turns out that our efforts were all a waste of time! Instead, we just could've read this single story about State Sen. Lori Klein, who embodies everything we've come to love about the Death State.
Here is video of some guy practicing his quick draw on a menacing target. "I just fucking shot myself!" The slow motion replay is particularly good.
Last week, three tourists watching a staged "Old West"-style gunfight in the South Dakota tourist town of Hill City were shot. Like, actually shot! One of those victims was Carrol Knutson, a visitor from Minnesota. And if there's one thing Carrol Knutson knows, it's this: she was shot by a god damn bullet. "Hospital staff told her a bullet shattered her fibula," for one thing. So she just, you know, came to that conclusion. Whoa there, little lady!
Thomas Dunikowski of Marine Park, Brooklyn, has become a folk hero of sorts among the "I really loved that movie Falling Down" demographic for leaning out of his window with a rifle and opening fire on a group of rowdy teenagers who were raising a ruckus outside his house. (See "purported" video of the shooting here.) Completely unnecessary! It is, in fact, possible to deal with the depths of teen awfulness without resorting to gunshots.
A Louisville, KY man has been arrested and charged with attempted murder for shooting a kid who was playing Ring and Run, ringing someone's doorbell then running away, with his friends. When his doorbell rang, 56-year-old Michael Bishop ran outside with his shotgun and fired in the direction of the fleeing kids, hitting a 12-year-old boy. So beware, neighborhood pranksters. [Courier-Journal, photo via Shutterstock]
Sure, bleeding heart PC types killed a bill earlier this year that would have allowed guns on college campuses in Texas. Consolation prize: Texas is "close to enacting" a new bill that will give school teachers detailed criminal histories of all their students. Because you never know when the next six-year-old will shoot up the school, or which kid's birthday party is actually cover for a cockfighting ring. Down in Texas, the legislators are armed, the merest whiff of lawbreaking gets you jailed, and prisoners get put down like dogs. You never know when one of these public school kids might get brainwashed by a Muslim textbook and start some serious jee-had. If our teachers can't have guns, well, at least we can "arm" them with the precise knowledge of just how evil these felons-to-be lurking in their classroom are. And also, maybe arm them with a knife?
A fight broke out on a crowded boardwalk in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn on Thursday afternoon, culminating in gunfire that killed one person and injured four on the hottest day of the year so far. It's unclear what started the fight (apparently, one man hit another with an umbrella just before the shooting broke out) or who two of the victims are (the woman who died and a man in "grave condition" were both wearing bathing suits and not carrying ID), though police apparently have one person in custody. It's hard not to think that the heat was partially responsible—both for bringing huge crowds to the boardwalk, and for fraying nerves and heightening tempers—but, for what it's worth, studies show that hot months have similar crime rates to cold months. [NYDN; image via @Copacabanaa]
Not good rapper Ja Rule, né Jeffrey Atkins, is set to turn himself in today, in order to begin serving a two year jail sentence for attempted criminal possession of a weapon. Back in 2007, New York "police found a loaded semi-automatic firearm — with the serial number scratched off — hidden in the backseat of his luxury Maybach sedan" on the Upper West Side. [CNN]
In May of 2009, Oklahoma City pharmacist Jerome Ersland was at work when two teenagers came in to rob his store. What happens is caught on the surveillance video above:
It's not entirely clear what led Frederick Ladd Wintle, a Republican state legislator from Maine, to believe that a local news photographer might also be a drug dealer who's somehow responsible for killing babies. But it appears that he was wrong, and also wrong about some other things.
Today we heard the terrific news that it will soon be legal to bring all your guns to college for fun gun parties and stuff. Uh oh, many people said. There will be drunk dudes shooting their pistols off (ew) every chance they get! But, one commenter warned, there's something else we're not thinking about.
The White House is holding an event celebrating American Poetry tonight, and guess what? You're not invited. Which, according to Fox News, Sarah Palin, The Daily Caller and associated forces, is great news for you! Because one of the poetry readers will be the rapper Common, the most evil and dangerous man alive.
Yesterday was a big day for armed vigilantes in Texas. The state Senate first passed a bill that will allow "legislators, statewide elected officials, some former legislators and some state employees to carry their concealed weapons into churches, hospitals, bars, sporting events — even if a sign is posted saying weapons are prohibited." Do you foresee any problems arising from that?
Is your pediatrician trying to take away your gun? (Probably!) You should move to Florida, where a new law would prevent pediatricians from asking about guns in the home. Thanks, NRA, for telling doctors what they can, and can't, do.
Jonathan Martis of Omaha was shot by police on Thursday after calling them to his house. His mother says he had been feeling depressed and telling people he wanted to die. But this fact doesn't fully explain why he was dressed up as a pirate.
