gulliver
gulliver's JournalWas the good guy with the gun really a good guy, or was this just another AR-15 murder spree?
I don't accept the "well, there's an example of a good guy with a gun," storyline. It doesn't hold water. I think we should at least try to untwist it before we have a bunch of the people who really deserve nothing but blame taking bows and basking in self-generated praise.
Three people were killed by a 20-year-old, nutty, broken young man using an assault rifle (Sig Sauer Model 400, supposedly). Isn't that just another murder spree to lay at the feet of the people who can't see the need for sensible gun control? It sure fits the pattern.
But what about the good guy, the hero?
Sorry. We don't know enough about him yet. It would be ironic if the "good guy" turns out to be an anti-gun-control absolutist who loves AR-15s. He might be a hero in that moment at the mall, while, simultaneously, unwittingly at 22, being an enabler-level accomplice to the crime.
On edit: And even if the young man turns out to be a clear hero (and I hope he does), that doesn't mean the guys who sing his praises and can't see their way to sensible gun control are heroes too. Their claim is only to the role of enabler.
I thought it was Ok for me to rob liquor stores!
There I was in the house watching TV with my family when, suddenly, I thought it would be great if we could have a new "OLED" big screen. We're frankly used to the best, my wife, offspring, and I, and our plain old 4K LED wasn't giving us the best black levels. That I can tell you.
Now, I could have paid for the set, I guess, but if I spent my money on an OLED, I wouldn't have the money for our vacation to Cancun. We're used to the best. I think I may have mentioned.
I'm a genius, so I hit on a plan right away. Just rob liquor stores. I could take the money I earned that way and add it to the old OLED fund until I had enough. Simple. The money is in the tills at the liquor stores. What else was there to think about? Problem solved.
I personally don't care about liquor stores. I don't drink, first of all. I take speed. I would never rob a fast-food joint or a bordello.
There was also "the law" and the "Ten Commandments," etc., so I did give those a lot of thought. Obviously, I would need a way around those.
No problem. I just got on some web sites and started telling people that I thought liquor stores were bad. They overcharged. They were unfair to the customers, especially people under 21. They were corrupt. Shouldn't someone go in and take their money and, well, maybe give it to charity? It's just a question. I "hoped" someone would give me the answer because, ya know, I didn't "know" liquor store robbery was "wrong."
Long story short, it worked, and, pretty soon, I had the names of some good, loving, community defenders. Most of the weaklings on the various sites told me I was nuts, and robbery was illegal and so forth, but a few "good" folks told me I was completely right. Robbing liquor stores was not only arguably legal (a couple of them were lawyers) but patriotic (we had a military guy). I even got support on the dark web from the Cosa Nostra and drug cartels.
I told the Cosa Nostra to stand by, but I invited the community defenders to my house to tell me their ideas. We met on my patio and invited the guy who mows my lawn and the mailman to sit with us. That's where we all "learned" it was Ok to rob liquor stores.
The lawn guy and mailman didn't think it was Ok, and they still don't apparently. They said robbery was illegal and wrong...blah...blah...blah. So, they did their jobs. I needed witnesses to the crazy, not agreement with it. I would have put it on TV if I could. (I would be great on TV, by the way, producers.)
The "crazy" people I had picked did what I needed. That's why I picked them. It was better than my expectations. Not only could I rob a liquor store, but I could get whoever I needed, insider or outsider, to help me. I could ask my neighbors to let the air out of the tires of the store security guards to keep them from being in the store. I could pressure the store employees to hand me the money in the till because I "owned the store," whether I had a title or not. If the Recorder of Deeds said I didn't have a title and didn't own the store, I could say the Recorder of Deeds was corrupt or a "never speed freaker".
The plan was great, as I said. My kind of genius is rare. I make Wile E. Coyote look like an idiot.
I went ahead and robbed a couple of stores right after the meeting on the patio. It didn't work as well as I hoped, unfortunately. Some of the security guards were there, and some cops showed up. The property title people weren't helpful. And you know what that means. I didn't get my OLED. That's the bad news about all of this.
Don't worry about me though. I'll figure out another way. I have a pretty solid chance of getting out of a prison rap. I picked a great, camera-friendly cast of people to tell me robbing liquor stores was Ok, and they work for nothing (as they've found out). Heaven knows I believed them. I'd never do anything illegal or wrong. Perish the thought.
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