Gun Free Zone

Happy the blest ages that knew not the dread fury of those
devilish engines of artillery, whose inventor I am persuaded is in hell receiving the reward of his diabolical invention, by which he made it easy for a base and cowardly arm to take the life of a gallant gentleman; and that, when he knows not how or whence, in the height of the ardour and enthusiasm that fire and animate brave hearts, there should come some random bullet, discharged perhaps by one who fled in terror at the flash when he fired off his accursed machine, which in an instant puts an end to the projects and cuts off the life of one who deserved to live for ages to come.
Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes, Chapter 38 (AD 1605)

Four hundred years ago, my namesake was laying it thick against guns. And even though the era of Knights was pretty much done for by then, the principle of an aristocratic fighter was still alive. Knight were the all powerful warriors who were invincible due to the monies they spent on training and equipment. Your mere plebeian could never even think to afford a Heavy Horse, sword, armor and all the accoutrements that came with the Knighthood stuff plus they were not royalty so they had no right to possess them. As Royalty, a knight could do pretty much what they wanted, lope the heads of who they wanted and take their possessions as payment for any perceived affront.

But a piece of iron pipe wrapped in leather crafted by the local blacksmith with some powder and a piece of lead inside just needed to be touched by a match to bring down the era of the Knights to a junkyard end. The philosophy behind it was not truly defined until some centuries later with the famous quote:

God created Man, Sam Colt made them equal.

Hell Yeah!

The Princess Bride Reunion photo.

Caught it from Rock In A Sea Of Chaos.

So here’s the meme. Long answers or short.
1. What was your first car? Model, year, color, condition?

1979 Dodge Aspen, apple green, brand new. Our family finally was in a decent economical position and Dad got a great deal for it.

2. What adventures did you have in it, good or bad? & 3. What happened to it, what’s the end of the story?

For me both questions go together. I pretty much learned how to drive in that car. I was a careless bastard who loved to do seriously stupid crap in it no matter how crazy the stunt. I was so bad, fellow college students refused to accept rides from me.  The car was very sensitive to wet pavement and after a couple of scares, I learned not to push the envelope during a rain which ended up saving my life. On May 13, 1979 on my way to college after going home from spending a rainy Mother’s day at home and while doing probably 30 mph on a very wet road, a drunk driver plowed on me. Before that day I never wore a seat-belt but that day my Guardian Angel whispered in my ear and I paid heed. The car was totaled after six months of ownership. I came out pretty much OK other than the belt bruise across my chest; the other driver went to the hospital & stayed there for 9 months. I never saw him again and to this date, if I see him I will deck his sorry ass for trying to kill me.

If you have a Twitter account, please subscribe to @MrHortonscycles (eat therich) feed. It is funny and gives you pretty much an idea how frigging deranged these Occupy Wall Street people can be.

Here are some samples:

Let’s be clear. This young asshole is all talk and no balls. He makes the traditional mistake of confusing politeness with weakness and that can be deadly if he ever decides to make the dumb mistake of trying to fulfill his threats. He is what some people call “target of opportunity”  and Uncle Joe called “Useful Idiot.”

But he is sure fun to watch!

Update: Useful Idiot apparently realized he was saying stuff not helpful to the “cause” so he started to delete past tweets. Kinda late by now Mr. Horton. Just saying.

Update 2: the account no longer exists. Oh well!

Update3: He changed names. He is now @anarcosocailist. Why do I have the feeling spelling is not his strong suit?

The problem is that some don’t bother to ask and they just shoot you for the gansta fun of it.

The end result was one employee slightly injured and one bad guy with two gunshot wounds in the arm and under arrest.

Serious victim selection failure. I am guessing he did not play lots of Cowboys & Indians as a kid. Only in Florida.

An auxiliary Florida Highway Patrol trooper shot and killed her neighbor Monday night after he came into her home armed with a bow and arrow and asked for money.

The St Petersburg Time/TampaBay.com “Idiotorial” of today bitterly complains that citizens from other states can obtain a Florida CCW way too easy. They go through the usual balderdash of why this is a bad idea and mentions without details two cases: One where a Philadelphia man shot an 18 year old car thief (apparently having a FL CCW is enough for the Philadelphia Enquirer and Philadelphia Cops to pass sentence without trial since they already declared the shooter a murderer. PS: The link is mine. The St. Pete Times did not dignified itself to provide more info.) and that somebody else was denied of a Pennsylvania permit because of “of his association with drug trafficking” which means you don’t need to be guilty of something, you just have to be suspected of not being  on “good character.” And I thought Jim Crow laws were dead.

But what really sent me in a fit of laughter was the parsimonious closing paragraph of the “Idotorial.”

Isn’t this the very essence of states’ rights? Each state should be free to determine and enforce for itself who should or shouldn’t be able to carry a concealed weapon — without the interference and bureaucratic indifference of another state. Concealed weapons permits should not be among Florida’s exports.

Well shit Bubba, it is not like Florida put a gun on Pennsylvania’s head and said “You accept our Weapons Licenses or we kill you!” Pennsylvania is free to deny reciprocity with Florida any time it wishes.

And I leave you with this quote:

Editor:  A person employed on a newspaper whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.  ~Elbert Hubbard