Everyone is talking about the guy who got trampled to death at a Wal-Mart on Black Friday, and all I have to say is: Honestly, what do you expect? It was going to happen eventually.

This gets back to the short-skirt, dark-alley analogy… no, nobody ever deserves to get raped, even if they do something really stupid. But for crying out loud, will you at least not act surprised when it happens? Nobody deserves to die in a shopper stampede, but hello - it’s not like it isn’t a fairly predictable result. It’s not like everyone queues peacefully until the doors open and then all hell breaks loose with no warning.

People participate in these things because they get off on it. It’s the arena. They want an excuse to misbehave. They want to throw elbows. They want to push and shove. It’s a housewife mosh pit. The whole thing is concocted to create a frenzy, an adrenaline rush - the thrill of the chase. Not only might you save a couple hundred bucks on an LCD TV, you can namelessly, facelessly kick somebody’s ass on your way to it. You’ll just be one of hundreds, so you are safe in anonymity, and you can be an animal.

So no, I can’t get too riled up about the whole thing, because I don’t participate in it and I think everyone who does - from the corporate hype-generators on down - is a jackass. If their cost-benefit analysis of intentionally inciting a mob works out to generate a profit… good for them, I suppose, but I’m not going to buy into it as a consumer. And if you’re stupid enough to get up in the middle of the night to go stand in a crowd with a bunch of whackos, and you look around and recognize there’s a decent chance they’re going to behave like a herd of wildebeasts and you are going to get caught in it, and you stay there to score This Season’s Gotta-Have Toy? Well… again, you may not deserve injury or death, but don’t give me this “How could this happen?!” crap when it does.

Oh, and at the risk of really outing myself as a heartless wench: If you’re the employee standing on the other side of glass doors, almost certainly unarmed, eyeing a frenzied mob and realizing your employer wants you to put your life on the line to protect their store, then I suggest you think fast and hard about whether the $10 an hour you’re getting paid is worth it. I, for one, would be across the street filling out an application at McDonald’s most ricky-tick.

Happy Turkey Day to all my fellow Americans!

‘Round here: The bird is in the oven, the candied sweet potatoes are waiting to go in momentarily, the biscuits and gravy need making, and Mike has concocted a pumpkin pie filling that threatens to be far better than any I’ve ever made. (I warned him if he was successful at this venture it would make him Official Pumpkin Pie Maker for Life, but he apparently paid my warning no heed…)

Nom, nom, nom.

Okay, I have been sick for ten days now, finally went to the doctor this morning, and he has me drugged up on codeine. By drugged up I mean I took one Tylenol-3 and am high as a kite. (Yes, yes, this is confirmed safe for pregnancy.) This is why being anti-drugs to the point I don’t even usually take Advil is awesome. One Tylenol-3! Whee!

The downside is I am now incapable of properly articulating my incredulity (and outrage) at H-S Precision, Inc. having chosen to promote their business with a ringing endorsement from none other than Lon Horiuchi.

Hat-tip to Commander Zero, Ahab, Uncle, War on Guns (who actually called H-S to confirm), Tam and a billion others.

Lon Horiuchi. Seriously.

The next day, FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi shot Randy in the back while he, Harris, and Weaver’s 16-year-old daughter Sara were outside, attempting to retrieve the body of Sammy Weaver, which was placed in a shed after being recovered the previous day. As the three ran back to the house, Horiuchi fired again, but this time hit Weaver’s wife Vicki in the head as she held their 10-month-old daughter Elishiba at the door. Vicki Weaver collapsed on the floor, dying instantly with her bloody but uninjured daughter in her arms. A Justice Department review later found the second shot was unconstitutional and the lack of a request to surrender was “inexcusable”, since Harris and the two Weavers were running for cover and could not pose an imminent threat. The task force also specifically blamed Horiuchi for firing at the door, not knowing whether someone was on the other side of it, along with those who had decided on the special rules of engagement allowing shots to be fired with no previous request for surrender. [WIKI]

Are they STUPID? I am not alone in thinking Horiuchi ought to be in prison, or perhaps in front of a firing squad, so I cannot imagine what idiot at H-S thought associating their business with him was any sort of a good idea. Somebody there is either very, very ignorant (and unaware of Google) or a very provocative asshole.

Either way, H-S better have a really good explanation for this, fast, or they’re on the fast track to Zumboland. I can’t imagine their .gov customers even like Horiuchi enough to want to actually associate with him, you know?

Also - as neighbor Joe points out, McMillan is a great alternative for high-end stocks made by a company that doesn’t suck. (I have a feeling Joe might my special indignation about Horiuchi, considering he’s rather a persona non grata in our home state of Idaho.)

PostSecret is one of my guilty pleasures. (Basic premise: People send in secrets on anonymous postcards. The PS coordinator posts selections weekly.) If you can get past all the emo near-suicides and annoying non-secrets, every once in a while there’s a real gem. I think this is my new favorite:

Check out what my mom found out - my great, great, great, great, great, great grandpa was John Rainey, who served under General Greene in the Revolutionary War.

The connection is matrilineal all the way back to Rainey, who fathered my great, great, great, great, great grandma, Nancy Rainey.

Now, to dig up all the documentation for this, so I can join DAR. :)

Someone on the “would you ever own a gun” thread I mentioned yesterday challenged the respondents with the following (obvious) question:

I have an honest question for those that are opposed to any kind of guns except for hunting.

Say a bad guy breaks into your home with the intent to harm you or your children. What is your plan to protect them?

Here are some responses so far:

Well, I’m not at all opposed to people owning guns for protection, I just don’t want to myself.

My plan is pretty much the same as my plan for an alien abduction of my children- that is, I’ll sit there and go “WTF is going on?????”.

I’m not real worried about bad guys breaking into my house and trying to hurt me. Really. The odds of something bad happening to my children because of a home invasion are smaller than the odds of something bad happening to them because of a gun in the home. (and again we do have a gun in our home, so I’m not anti-gun at all)

And:

Where I live, it doesn’t really happen. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a home invasion in my area. (And if it was common enough to warrant worry, I’d definitely move. Don’t want to live with fear.)

And:

i live on the 3rd floor of an apt building that you need a coded thing to wave in front of a little box to unlock any door into a building. we have a lock on the door handle, a dead bolt, and a door chain. we always always always lock all three when we are home. (mostly b/c what the point if you don’t lock them) the odds of someone breaking in are slim. our walls are paper thing so the neighbors not hearing is almost impossible.

If someone did break into my house with the intent to hurt DS i would probably lock us in the bedroom and push the dresser in front of the door them call the cops. if this was not a possibility it would depend. if he was armed with anything but a gun i would fight like hell. If someone is threatening my baby there is nothing i wouldn’t do.. so i would either do what he wanted, talk to him and try to distract him (not as far fetched as one would think), or fight his sorry butt. it would depend on his intentions and what he wanted.. it would also have to be in the middle of the day b/c dp gets home around 4ish.

So, here are the common themes I’m noticing, from those responses as well as earlier in the thread (paraphrased):

• That doesn’t happen here.
• If that were to happen here, it wouldn’t happen to me.
• Someone else - neighbors, cops, significant other - will protect me.
• Preparing myself for self-defense equals paranoia or living in fear.

That last one is especially interesting to me. Gun ownership and carry has never been couched in terms of paranoia or fear or false confidence for me. On a day-to-day basis, it’s pretty much just a thing I do, just like I buckle up in the car, or check the batteries in the smoke detectors, or have a fire extinguisher under the sink. I don’t wear a seatbelt because I’m trembling in anticipation of an accident every time I get behind the wheel - nor do I put on the seatbelt and drive 100 mph through town because I think I’m now immune to danger. I don’t stand poised over the stove with the fire extinguisher every time I cook bacon (mmm… BACON!!!) - nor do I barbecue in the living room.

I put on my seatbelt in the car because in the unlikely event of an accident, I don’t want the paramedics to be my best chance at survival. I keep the smoke detectors working and the fire extinguisher under the sink because in the unlikely event of a fire, I don’t want to hope the fire department gets there in time to get me out and/or save my house. I carry a firearm because in the unlikely event of needing to use it in self-defense, I don’t want to count on the cops, neighbors, passers-by or my husband to show up in time (and be willing and able) to help me.

That’s it, folks. There’s no tinfoil, no paranoia, no fear. It’s just a thing I do.

Someone started a thread asking if people would “ever own a gun.” The specific scenario in question involves rural dwellers with a husband who is going to be traveling a lot, and they’re considering getting a gun for home and livestock defense.

Of course, responses have been entertaining (and not all mind-boggling, there was one “An armed society is a polite society!” response and several have been in agreement) but this one takes the cake:

Of course NO

i prefer someone to shoot me that to kill somebody.
hopefully in greece where I live we don’t have very high criminality

That middle line - “i prefer someone to shoot me that to kill somebody” - how in the hell do you get there, as a living creature? How do you lose all sense of self-preservation? How do you completely lose your will to survive?

I don’t get it.

I’m actually starting to feel semi-confident about the Obama administration. I mean… I was afraid he was actually going to make good on his promise of change, and that freaked me out because I don’t like the kind of change he talks about.

Now that he’s more or less assembling a cabinet consisting of a who’s-who of the Democratic establishment elite (also known as Everyone Who Ever Worked For Bill Clinton), I’m gaining confidence he might just be more of the same after all… which means a lot of posturing, chest-beating, blaming Republicans, and then getting nothing done other than making people realize everything Democrats do is either a) dangerous, b) worthless, or c) both.

Hey, how ’bout that Eric Holder pick for Attorney General?

About two weeks before the raid, Tim Russert asked Holder, “You wouldn’t send a SWAT team in the dark of night to kidnap the child, in effect?”  Holder answered, “No, we don’t expect anything like that to happen.”  Then the Department did precisely that. The day after the seizure, Holder appeared again with Russert, who asked, “Why such a dramatic change in position?” “I’m not sure I’d call it a dramatic change,” Holder answered.  “We waited ’til five in the morning, just before dawn.” [SOURCE]

Just to refresh your memory:

Yes. Somebody who thought that was a good idea is Obama’s pick for Attorney General.

Oh, and the guy Obama is picking for White House counsel - Gregory Craig - has a distinguished list of clients:

• John Hinckley, the guy who attempted to assasinate President Reagan. Hinckley’s insanity defense? Courtesy of Craig.
• Ted Kennedy and William Kennedy Smith, who he advised on the Palm Beach rape case.
• Bill Clinton, who he defended against impeachment.
• Elian Gonzalez’s father, who (along with the Castro regime) wanted Elian back in Cuba
• Bolivian Minister of Defense Jose Carlos Sánchez Berzaín, who fled to the USA under accusations of human rights violations and the murder of dozens of civilians protesting the Bolivian government.
• Pedro Miguel González Pinzón, under indictment for the ambush killing of a US Army Sergeant and wounding of another.

Wow. I don’t know what else to say, but wow. Think he’s gonna go for the gold and bring back Janet Reno while he’s at it?

Man tries to pay bill with spider drawing.

Just trust me and click the link. It’s hilarious.

Via Uncle:

When Seconds Count: Stopping Active Killers

–snip–

The other statistic that emerged from a study of active killers is that they almost exclusively seek out “gun free” zones for their attacks.

In most states, concealed handguns are prohibited at schools and on college campuses even for those with permits.

Many malls and workplaces also place signs at their entrances prohibiting firearms on the premises.

Now tacticians believe the signs themselves may be an invitation to the active killers.

The psychological profile of a mass murderer indicates he is looking to inflict the most casualties as quickly as possible.

Also, the data show most active killers have no intention of surviving the event.

They may select schools and shopping malls because of the large number of defenseless victims and the virtual guarantee no on the scene one is armed.

As soon as they’re confronted by any armed resistance, the shooters typically turn the gun on themselves.

–snip–

Well YOU DON’T SAY.